News

When Vitor (Adriano Luz) arrives at work, breezing down the corridor in no particular hurry, he’s four minutes late. Not a big deal in most workplaces, but in radio, where silence is nigh unforgiveable, it’s extremely inconsiderate. His apology is casual, devoid of any real concern. Just a small thing. Just four minutes. An indication, nonetheless, of his self-centred approach to life, his easy disregard for the effect of his behaviour on other people.

His listeners don’t consider him uncaring. He is O Lobo Solitário, the Lone Wolf who gets them through the night, mixing music with chat, entertaining long distance lorry drivers and lonely insomniacs. Tonight they are going to be talking about emotions. When Vitor gets a call from old friend Raul (António Fonseca), however, the night takes an abrupt turn. Raul has some serious accusations to make, live on air, and Vitor has to figure out how.

Filipe Melo

Filipe Melo’s The Lone Wolf (O Lobo Solitário) was recently shortlisted for this year’s Oscars. 23 minutes long and captured in a single shot, it stars seasoned Portuguese actor Adriano Luz as Vitor Lobo, a late night radio talk show host who gets a shock one night when old friend Raul (António Fonseca) calls in and begins to make some very disturbing allegations, live on air. It’s a tense piece of work, but perhaps equally tense was the day when Filipe received the news. He’s a filmmaker, musician and author whose life has suddenly begun to change in dramatic ways, and when we met, he told me how it felt to have the attention of the Academy.

“It was absolutely crazy,” he says, explaining that he had a dangerous accident earlier that day when he drilled into a wall to hang up a painting and inadvertently pierced a gas.

Karim Aïnouz’s beguilingly stunning “Invisible Life” is Brazil’s latest cinematic treasure. Even as the country’s conservative government threatens to cut the funding to the robust film scene that has given us critically acclaimed works like “Aquarius,” “Neon Bull” and “The Second Mother,” there are works like “Invisible Life” that remind international audiences of the stories the nation is fighting to tell in the face of adversity.

“Invisible Life” is a tale of two sisters in 1950s Rio de Janeiro. Guida (Julia Stockler), the slightly more adventurous one, escapes from a family dinner one night to go out with a mysterious suitor, a Greek sailor. She disappears the next morning, leaving behind only a note and one of her grandmother’s earrings she had left with the night before.

Her sister, Eurídice (Carol Duarte), blames herself for covering for her sister to leave the family without so much as saying goodbye.

Karim Aïnouz’s The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão is a tale of resistance. It hones in on two inseparable sisters stranded in–and ultimately pulled apart by–an ossified patriarchal world. It is an engrossing melodrama where melancholia teems with rage, with a tear-jerking finale that feels so devastating because of the staggering mix of love and fury that precedes it. It is, far and above, an achingly beautiful story of sisterly love.

Based on a 2015 novel by Martha Batalha, the director’s Un Certain Regard winner homes in on two young sisters in 1950s Rio de Janeiro, the eponymous 18-year-old Eurídice (Carol Duarte) and 20-year-old Guida (Júlia Stockler). Singularly titled as it may be, The Invisible Life is the story of their relationship, and the mutual struggle to escape from the confines–literal and symbolic–of the conservative household they’ve been raised in by strict father Manuel...

Thanks to QuietEarth for unearthing the trailer to mystery thriller Cinerama, which hasn't been screened outside of Portugal yet.

Kidnapping and revenge form the main plotlines of Cinerama, including some oblique arthouse moodiness and what can only be described as breathtaking visuals. Starring Sofia Marques, Diogo Dória, Ricardo Aibéo; António Fonseca, Meirinho Mendes, Rita Loureiro, João Cabral and directed and written by Inês Oliveira.