“There are two things, only two things, truly important important in life: love and fear. We are what we are in the balance between these two.”

Prof. José Eduardo Pinto da Costa

I’ll never forget these words. I heard them from Professor Pinto da Costa in an interview he gave me two years ago. These words struck me as the purest, most transparent and at the same time, most complex truth about life and human beings’ hopes and dreams. They’ve inspired me since. The more space I give to do what I love, the less space fears have in my life. Storytelling, scriptwriting, that’s what I love to do.

I tell stories, or rather I invent stories, since I can remember. I was very young, just a little child, and my mother used to tell me: “you make a lot of movies”. It’s funny, looking back, my mother was right. That’s what I do. I make movies, and I’m paid to do them.

It’s all about storytelling, one of the ancient ways humans have to share experiences, bond and connect with each other. Cave men told their stories on the walls in blood. Later, others gathered around the fire to do so. Today we do it in the world wide web, the coffee shops and even at the Reactor Innovation Hub. Stories bring people together.

Who doesn’t remember the bedtime stories our mothers, fathers, grannies, aunts … told us when we were children? For me, that’s one the comfiest childhood memories I have: the stories – always the same two or three – my aunt Lourdes told me each time she would spend the weekend with us. I loved to listen to her telling me that same old, same old “Three Little Pigs” story. I remember I felt safe and reassured listening to her telling me those same bedtime stories.

And that’s the power of the storytelling. Stories bring people together. They connect us all, they reassure us, they help us letting go of our fears, just like when we were kids.

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The Speaker: Cristina Alves

Communication is her passion, storytelling her path. With a 20- year career in communication, with a brief but enriching passage through teaching, 14 years of her experience were working on television. RTP2, Sic Notícias and also a documentary for TVI, bust most of the time, 12 years, were dedicated to RTP1, mainly live broadcast, whether in reports and in studio.

It was in the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto that she took a degree commonly known as Modern Languages and Literatures, specializing in French and English language and cultures. There she got the seeds, linguistic, literary and cultural, that allow her to work in Communication as he does. She travels the country in search of stories to tell.

Documentary, institutional and promotional, her job is to create movies. Research, ask, interview, observe, write the plot and then shoot, perform, and edit one more movie.

This event is FREE to attend, but you have to register yourself first.

Bring a Friend and see you there!