Portuguese Film Showcase in Macao [03/06/2020]

As has been in recent years, and within the the celebrations of the 10th of June, Portugal Film joins Fundação Oriente and Casa de Portugal in Macau in organizing this showcase, which also has the institutional support of the Consulate General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong, Instituto Português do Oriente, AICEP, Fundação Macau, and the association XCESSU.

This year, the Covid-19 pandemic imposed restrictions that forced the reshaping of the initial proposal and prevented the presence of guests from Portugal, but the films have their own means of reaching people and it was enough for the territory to reopen movie theaters, essential for the magic to happen, and soon the show resumed, this year in a slightly reduced format but intense in content.

For the opening session we chose a film by Tiago Guedes, the director who recently saw his film A Herdade selected in Venice, which in the same year 2019 premiered Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes, from the adaptation of a play by Tiago Rodrigues, director of Teatro D. Maria II and winner of the Pessoa Prize in 2019. This film adaptation features the performance of Maria Abreu, who received the Revelation Award at the Caminhos do Cinema Português.

On the second day there will be two short sessions - one at 7 pm and the other starting at 9:30 pm - where some of the films that have been shown at the main international film festivals will be presented. The afternoon session opens with the latest short by Catarina Mourão who last year was present at this exhibition and taught a documentary workshop within the scope of this collaboration. The Hissing of Summer Sands premiered internationally at the prestigious Swiss festival Visions du Réel and has since been critically acclaimed at festivals wherever it goes. In the same session, there are also the films Em Caso de Fogo, by Tomás Paula Marques (who had his previous film, Sem Armas, shown at last year's showcase), which has had an extraordinary international career, even winning the competition of school films at the San Sebastian Festival; the film Invisible Hero, by Cristèle Alves Meira, which premiered at the Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival last year; and finishing the film Past Perfect, by Jorge Jácome, which premiered at the Berlin Festival short film competition in 2019. Jorge Jácome, who lived in Macau as a child, would be the guest of this year's workshop if the pandemic situation had allowed for it to happen. Flores, his previous film, was shown in the 2018 edition of this showcase after being the most awarded Portuguese film of that year. Past Perfect, which closes this first session, already has more than 50 selections and 6 main prizes.

The short session that closes this year's edition of the Portuguese Film Showcase in Macao features the films Phantom Power, by Afonso Mota, a hybrid between documentary and fiction based on sound and cinema; These Are My Hands, by André Miguel Ferreira, who won the Brand New award at IndieLisboa last year; Reynard, by Leonor Noivo, a director with strong connections to Macao and who received an important award with this film at Fid Marseille, on its premiere. The session ends with Gabriel Abrantes' The Marvelous Misadventures of the Stone Lady, an animated comedy about a sculpture fleeing the Louvre Museum, which premiered in the Cannes Directors' Fortnight in 2019.

There are thus three unmissable cinema sessions that show, as in previous years, the liveliness and excellence of Portuguese Cinema!

[03/06/2020]