Daniel Gonçalves

ABYSSAL FISH is a creative film in the border between fiction, real and performance through the artistic work of Luís Capucho. A singular artist who survived the time when the HIV represented the death stigma. Building an amazing work of poetic power post­disease, Capucho surpasses the physical sequels that have left him mute and without part of his body movements for a while, until the current partial recovery.

In this disarming and personal documentary, Gonçalves explores precisely what it is that is wrong with him. His physical disability is obvious, but doctors have never managed to provide a diagnosis. As he undergoes a series of tests, he paints a picture of his life today and looks back over his past, assisted by a vast collection of VHS videos, for which he sometimes provides commentary to explain the context.

In this disarming and personal documentary, Gonçalves explores precisely what it is that is wrong with him. His physical disability is obvious, but doctors have never managed to provide a diagnosis. As he undergoes a series of tests, he paints a picture of his life today and looks back over his past, assisted by a vast collection of VHS videos, for which he sometimes provides commentary to explain the context.

In this disarming and personal documentary, Gonçalves explores precisely what it is that is wrong with him. His physical disability is obvious, but doctors have never managed to provide a diagnosis. As he undergoes a series of tests, he paints a picture of his life today and looks back over his past, assisted by a vast collection of VHS videos, for which he sometimes provides commentary to explain the context.

Located at the intersection of disability and queerness, this documentary enriches, implicates, and breaks open the conversation around sexual life in the disabled community. This film does not shy away from the complexities and challenges of queer life, but rather embraces them and in doing so, illuminates how they impact one another and bring new dimensionality to the position of the body within them. Resisting a normative lens, this filmmaker uses the observational power of the camera to document the raw sexuality, fantasies, and erotic expressions of a wide array of subjects with rare candor and vulnerability. Embodied sexual explorations are balanced against interviews that in their frankness and insightfulness criticize and deepen the lacking conversation around this intersection in the wider discourse.

Located at the intersection of disability and queerness, this documentary enriches, implicates, and breaks open the conversation around sexual life in the disabled community. This film does not shy away from the complexities and challenges of queer life, but rather embraces them and in doing so, illuminates how they impact one another and bring new dimensionality to the position of the body within them. Resisting a normative lens, this filmmaker uses the observational power of the camera to document the raw sexuality, fantasies, and erotic expressions of a wide array of subjects with rare candor and vulnerability. Embodied sexual explorations are balanced against interviews that in their frankness and insightfulness criticize and deepen the lacking conversation around this intersection in the wider discourse.

In this disarming and personal documentary, Gonçalves explores precisely what it is that is wrong with him. His physical disability is obvious, but doctors have never managed to provide a diagnosis. As he undergoes a series of tests, he paints a picture of his life today and looks back over his past, assisted by a vast collection of VHS videos, for which he sometimes provides commentary to explain the context.