The work of the American Deborah Stratman escapes easy labels. Crossing all kinds of media – from moving image to photography, from sculpture to drawing or installation – her work can be found in the official selection of Rotterdam and Sundance festivals, as well as in the halls of important galleries and museums, such as the MoMA or the Pompidou Centre. Regardless of the chosen output, Stratman's work is concerned, above all, with the ability to question the underlies mundane things, routines and behaviours. Exploring history, uses, mythologies and patterns imprinted on different kinds of landscape – from the Muslim province of Xinjiang in China, to rural Ireland or suburban California – her work points to the relationships between physical environments and the struggles of power and control that humans operate in the land. More recently, Stratman has also focused on historical narratives about faith, freedom, expansionism and the paranormal.

From July 8–16, the 31st Curtas Vila do Conde dedicates Doborah Stratman an intensive programme InFocus, which presents a selection of her cinematographic work; a Carte Blanche, in which the artist presents works that have influenced her work; and the masterclass Radical Listening, in which she will explore the potential of sound and audio as a motor and creator of space.

The programme is completed with an exhibition at Solar – Cinematic Art Gallery, that brings a set of works shown to an exhibition context. The choice of Deborah Stratman as the focus for the 2023 Curtas edition fulfils one of the main purposes of the joint work between Curtas and Solar: on the one hand, bridging the territories of Cinema and Visual Arts and, on the other, enhancing synergies between the two projects, and revealing lesser-known aspects of the work of artists/filmmakers of reference and greater importance on the international scene.

A regular presence in the Curtas – nine of her films have been selected for the competitions, from 2002 to the present day – Stratman won the International Competition in 2003, with In Order Not To Be Here.