Leonardo Mouramateus and Teresa Villaverde at the Rotterdam Film Festival [20/12/2019]


The International Film Festival of Rotterdam announced the programme for its 49th edition, which includes Leonardo Mouramateus's Rain Hums a Lullaby to Pain and a focus on the director's work as well as Où en êtes-vous, Teresa Villaverde? by Teresa Villaverde in the Voices section.

Leonardo Mouramateus' latest film brings with it a focus on the director’s work. It’s already his second showcase, having been the first in 2015 presented at the Cinémathèque Française under the Visions du Cinéma Brésilien program. In Rotterdam, he has his short films in the combined program, Short Profile Leonardo Mouramateus 1 & 2 [Charizard (2012), Mauro in Cayenne (2012), Two in the shadow (2014), The party and the barking (2015), Story of a feather (2015) and Vando aka Vedita (2017, co-directed with Andréia Pires)].

Rain Hums a Lullaby to Pain, the film competing in the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition, is a free adaptation of Lucrèce, Poète by Marcel Schwob. Mouramateus gives us a film about the human condition that, like its main character who is going through a crisis, wanders between nature and the austere, the contemporary and the classic, looking for answers.

Synopsis
In the year 74 BC, Titus Lucretius Carus, a young man with bold ideas, tries to convince his friend Memio that moving to the city of Rome to study is a total waste of time. Years later, Lucretius returns from the capital. Trying to find a balance between his explanations of the natural world and his emotional experience of it, Lucretius lives a deep and troubled passion with his foreign wife Isa.

Où en êtes-vous, Teresa Villaverde? Exactement là où je voulais être according to the director. The film, competing in the Voices section of the festival, was made within the scope of the retrospective that Centre Pompidou prepared about the work of the director. The films entitled “Où en êtes-vous?” followed by the names of the authors, are the result of an invitation by the Centre to make a free format film that answers the question posed taking into account the retrospective of their work and the future of it.

Teresa Villaverde filmed the anxiety at the Mangueira Samba School, Rio de Janeiro, pending the decision of the juries of who would be the 2019 Carnival champion. The celebrations and samba of the award-winning school were made in honor of those oppressed who resist against the current situation in Brazil. The film is part of the Voices Program.

Synopsis
In Rio de Janeiro, people from the Mangueira neighbourhood follow the television broadcast on a big screen as the juries vote on each samba school. In 2019, Mangueira took to the Sambadrome a strong, bold samba of resistance to what’s taking place in Brazil right now. The film witnesses the tension while waiting for the final score, and the great joy of people from every generation when Mangueira wins and becomes champion of the 2019 Carnival.

Portugal Film will be present in Rotterdam to accompany the films with Leonardo Mouramateus, Mauro Soares (actor) and Clara Jost (editor of the film Où en êtes-vous, Teresa Villaverde?).

[20/12/2019]