Portuguese Film week will take place September 13 – 23 at the Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem Cinematheques. The festival will feature recent films by leading directors made in 2007 – 2009, a special tribute to the director Manoel de Oliveira (b. 1908) with screenings of his films directed between the ages of 92 – 100.
Opening the festival in Tel Aviv on September 13th will be Amália – the Film by Carlos Coelho da Silva, homage to the musical genre of fado, and the legendary singer. Actress Sandra Barata, who portrays Portuguese fado singer Amália Rodrigues in the film, will be the guest of the festival, as well as Rui Gulart, director of the film 1st time – 16 mm.
The festival program:
Belle Toujours by Manoel de Oliveira
Portugal/France 2006, 68 minutes, Portuguese with English subtitles.
Manoel de Oliveira sets out on a cinematic expedition to the past and creates an emotive tribute to the films and directors that have influenced him. Taking two of the strange characters from Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière’s erotic masterpiece Belle de Jour, de Oliveira places them thirty eight years later in Paris, where old and new secrets are to be revealed.
Tel Aviv 15.9, Haifa 21.9, Jerusalem 26.9.
Christopher Columbus, the Enigma by Manoel de Oliveira
Portugal 2007, 75 minutes, Portuguese with English and Hebrew subtitles.
Director Manoel de Oliveira adapts to the screen the true story of a doctor and his wife who try to prove that Christopher Columbus was not Italian but Portuguese. The film follows the two protagonists through their life’s quest, sweeping the audience into a captivating and romantic journey.
Haifa 16.9, Jerusalem 20.9, Tel Aviv 21.9
Magic Mirror by Manoel de Oliveira
Portugal 2005, 137 minutes, Portuguese with English subtitles.
Luciano is fresh out of jail and finds work at the home of a wealthy family. The wife Alfreda’s greatest desire is to see the Virgin Mary. Luciano cannot grasp this madness, but nevertheless decides to exploit it. Together with his friend he decides to create the Virgin Mary and have her meet Alfreda
Haifa 14.9, Jerusalem 19.9, Tel Aviv 22.9
Word and Utopia by Manoel de Oliveira
Portugal/France/Brazil 2000, 135 minutes, Portuguese with English and Hebrew subtitles. In 1663, the famous Jesuit priest, Father Antonio Vieira, is summoned before the Tribunal of the Inquisition. In front of the judges, Vieira reviews his past. After the Inquisition deprives him of his freedom of speech, he flees to Rome where the Pope decides to keep him within his patronage. Following a failed attempt to return to Portugal, Vieira returns to Brazil, where he spends his final days. An epic film based on a true story.
Haifa 12.9, Tel Aviv 23.9, Jerusalem 27.9
Amália – the Film, by Carlos Coelho da Silva
Portugal 2008, 127 minutes, Portuguese with English and Hebrew subtitles.
1984. In a hotel room, after a successful Broadway performance, Amália, suffering from a brain tumor, reflects on her life. A biography of one of the most important and influential characters of 20th century music. The songs used in the film are recordings of Amália.
Tel Aviv 13.9 & 16.9, Jerusalem 14.9, Haifa `15.9
Fado – the Story of a Fado Singer
Portugal 1947, 110 minutes, Portuguese with English subtitles.
Amália Rodruigez, diva of fado, stars in this film based loosely on the events of her life.
Tel Aviv 15.9, Haifa 19.9, Jerusalem 23.9
This Dear Month of August by Miguel Gomes
Portugal 2008, 150 minutes, Portuguese with English subtitles.
The month of August is abuzz with people and activity in Portugal. Emigrants returning home for the summer and having fun: setting off fireworks, singing karaoke, diving from bridges, drinking beer, making love. If the film director and crew resisted the temptation of joining the festivities, the synopsis would have come down to: the film follows the affective relationship between father, daughter, and her cousin, all of them musicians in a dance band. Director Gomes combines fiction and documentary, plenty of humor, and cinematic innovation to create one of Portugal’s best films of 2009.
Tel Aviv 14.9, Haifa 20.9, Jerusalem 28.9
1st Time – 16MM by Rui Goulart
Portugal 2008, 100 minutes, Portuguese with Hebrew subtitles.
A first-time filmmaker and his young and inexperienced crew endure considerable hardship during the shooting of their first film. Without money, but with great conviction, they choose to film with 16 mm, the cheapest material, and get entangled in an adventure they never expected
Haifa 13.9, Tel Aviv 20.9, Jerusalem 21.9 – the film’s director will be present in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
April Showers by Ivo Ferriera
Portugal 2009, 90 minutes, Portuguese with English subtitles.
April 1974 marked the end of a long dictatorship in Portugal. The new democracy developed in the midst of turmoil. The father of a family disappeared without a trace as a result of an action by a leftist group. The mother denies the past while the son grows up with unanswered questions. Decades after the end of the dictatorship Fredo decides to confront the past. He slowly uncovers the truth about his father’s disappearance, yet learns things that perhaps had been best left hidden…
Tel Aviv 19.9, Jeursalem 25.9
Goodnight Irene by Paolo Marinou-Blanco
Portugal 2008, 98 minutes, English with Portuguese subtitles.
Alex, an old and failed English actor, drags out a solitary existence. Bruno, a young and reclusive Portuguese locksmith, devotes himself to his obsession: fighting the passing of time. Although strangers to one another, both men’s lives are set to change when the meet Irene, an attractive, joyful and passionate Portuguese painter. She is everything Alex and Bruno are not, and the two men’s lives begin to gravitate obsessively around her. Her disappearance will change the course of these men’s lives forever….
Haifa 13.9, Tel Aviv 13.9, Jerusalem 16.9.
