The first part of a trilogy in which Miguel Gomes reflects on the miserable situation in Portugal, which suffers heavily under the economic crisis and the demands of the troika – represented here as merchants on camels. The playful form is borrowed from the fairy tale of Scheherazade, but the copiously metaphoric content is based on recent events in Portugal. In this first part, after a documentary opening about the closure of a shipyard, things momentarily threaten to go wrong when the director (Gomes himself) is struck by fear of failure. Scheherazade takes his place and continues the narration. Impotent Portuguese rulers and their foreign masters get permanent erections thanks to an African miracle healer, a crowing rooster is brought to trial, a broken heart leads to arson and a beached whale and the traditional New Year’s Day swim give occasion for tragic personal stories. Gomes’s unabashed shifting between reality and fantasy drew a lot of attention at the Cannes Film Festival.
Film details
Productielanden
France, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland
Jaar
2015
Festivaleditie
IFFR 2016
Lengte
125'
Medium/Formaat
DCP
Taal
Portuguese
Première status
None
Director
Miguel Gomes
Producer
Luís Urbano, Sandro Aguilar, Thomas Ordonneau, Jonas Dornbach, Janine Jackowski, Elena Tatti, Elodie Brunner
Principal cast
Adriano Luz, Crista Alfaiate
Editing
Telmo Churro, Miguel Gomes, Pedro Filipe Marques
Screenplay
Telmo Churro, Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo
Production design
Bruno Duarte, Artur Pinheiro
Cinematography
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Mário Castanheira
Sound design
Vasco Pimentel
Production company
O Som e a Fúria, Shellac Sud, Komplizen Film GmbH, Box Productions