Independent Film Lab – super8, 16, 35 mm, Porto, Portugal
The path that would lead to the creation of ATOMO47 started around 1999 when Ricardo Leite and other filmmakers from Porto started to shoot, edit and project films in super 8 film formats. Ricardo Leite started to develop films in his own house and later, in 2003 the small laboratory moved to the artistic Association called “AICART”. There, many film workshops and screenings were made, but the association closed its doors in 2005. In 2007, Ricardo Leite and another filmmaker, André Mata and Catarina Lima, a photographer, opened ATOMO47 as an independent laboratory and photography and cinema shop. The name of the project was based on the atomic number of silver: 47. The lab had many films produced and organized many film workshops, but closed its doors in 2009. In 2012 Ricardo Leite decides to reopen the project has an association based inside the “Casa da Imagem” run by the Foundation Manuel Leão in Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto. The laboratory is fully operational now and works mainly on super 8 and 16 mm both color and black & white. Because it has an associative structure without lucrative purpose, it will work mainly based on developing individual projects, film workshops and screenings.
