Split-screen is one of the techniques most used in audiovisual essays to analyze the cinematographic image. The side-by-side presentation of shots from different films requires an active mode of reception in the viewer, challenging one to find echoes and dissonance between the two images. This is Margarida Leitão’s first foray into the field of the audiovisual essay. Scenes from “Stromboli”, by Roberto Rossellini (1950), a key film in late Italian neorealism, are compared with “At Land” by Maya Deren (1944), the North American experimental film icon. The common thread is the presence of actress Ingrid Bergman and Maya Deren herself, the protagonist in the film. The essay surprises in its poses, range of shots and even similar settings, creating a set of unexpected rhymes between the two films which, at the outset, could not be considered more aesthetically distant from one another. “Gestos de Realismo” was commissioned for the director by Luís Mendonça and Carlos Natálio, guest editors of a special issue of “Interact: Revista Online de Arte, Cultura e Tecnologia” dedicated to the theme “Cinema, Digital Criticism and the Audiovisual Essay” (http://interact.com.pt/). (TB)