The seminar To Avoid Suicide takes its title from the installation Songs to Avoid Suicide, composed of the works On Suicide and To the Little Radio (both dating from 2022) as they appear in the exhibition The Song of Pedro Costa. To Avoid Suicide is more than a title, because it acts as a guide to the content that will be debated in the seminar, based exclusively on Costa’s cinematographic work.

The seminar will consist of a dialogue between Pedro Costa and Javier Codesal, plus the contributions of the participants. The debate will be structured mainly around the central figures of Costa’s films: Vanda, Ventura and Vitalina, related in so many ways that they are even phonetically linked, and the couple Straub-Huillet. These figures are approached from their social and cinematic contexts.

The programme's five seminars will be as follows:

1. The first part of this session is dedicated to The Song book of Fogo (a video presenting the artist's book Down to Earth – Scrapbook exhibited in La Virreina). The second part focuses on Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub as they are portrayed in Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (2002).

2. The second session is dedicated to Vanda and her environment through the films in which she participates: Bones (1997), In Vanda's Room (2000) and Colossal Youth (2006).

3. The third session revolves around the character of Ventura and the films Colossal Youth, Our Man (2010), Horse Money (2014) and Vitalina Varela (2019).

4. The fourth session focuses on Vitalina and her participation in Horse Money and Vitalina Varela.

5. The final session is based on the exhibition The Song of Pedro Costa and the issues that are addressed in it.

This is just an outline, because the conversational format will give rise to any amount of digression, which will definitely be welcome.