In Alberto in Lisbon, I have revisited Alberto Manguel’s library which I had filmed in
its previous home a decade earlier in Mondion, France for my dyptich video House of
Letters. This library, in the meantime, has been uprooted from its home in France
due to some administrative hassle from French authorities. One country’s loss is
another’s gain, in this case, for the city of Lisbon has made a generous offer to
Manguel to relocate his library to an 18th-century villa in the city centre. Under
Manguel’s directorship, this villa will host the library and develop into a
library/research/ art space, or “a centre for intellectual subversion”, in Manguel’s
words.

I have followed this process in Lisbon, filming for a few days every 6 months for three
years as the preparations for the centre continued. As the project developed, the film
became much more than just documenting the groundwork; it evolved into a kind of
a portrait of Manguel, the writer, the puppet maker and much more as he adjusts to
his new home and city.

[Ali Kazma, from the interview with Guillaume de Sardes for the catalogue of the artist’s solo
exhibition at the New National Museum of Monaco.]