Berlinale: Programme

Film File

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A portuguesa

The Portuguese Woman

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His home is war. Her home is Portugal. Yet the young, newly married wife of Lord von Ketten is determined to make her husband’s family abode, an inhospitable castle on a cliff in northern Italy, into her home. When he sets off to battle with his men and tries to send her back to her parents, she decides to stay. Over the eleven long years he stays away, she insists to her relatives on their rare visits that this is where she belongs, even as they see the house as her mausoleum and lament her loneliness. And she does indeed carve out a life for herself here. She reads, sings, plays music, dances, swims and rides in the forest. She also rears a young wolf to which she is closer than to her two sons – or at least that’s what’s suggested by this adaptation of Robert Musil’s novella “The Portuguese Woman”, which is set in the Middle Ages and features magnificent costumes and opulent images captured by the elegant, gliding camerawork. The animals are positioned in conspicuous fashion, as if they stem from somewhere else, just like the figure of Ingrid Caven in a shoulder-less evening gown cooing songs or reciting Walther von der Vogelweide in the courtyard. Tandaradei!

by
Rita Azevedo Gomes

Portugal 2018

Portuguese, German

136’ · Colour

With

Clara Riedenstein (The Portuguese Woman)
Marcello Urgeghe (Von Ketten)
Ingrid Caven (Wonderer)
Rita Durão (Moorish Slave)
Pierre Léon (Old Servant)
João Vicente (Pero Lobato)
Luna Picolli-Truffaut (Antonie)
Manuela de Freitas (Seer)
Alexandre Alves Costa (Trent's Bishop)
Fernando Rodrigues (Ferant)

Crew

Written and Directed by
Rita Azevedo Gomes
Dialogue
Agustina Bessa-Luís
Cinematography
Acácio de Almeida
Editing
Rita Azevedo Gomes
Music
José Mário Branco
Sound Design
Olivier Blanc
Sound
António Porém Pires, Tiago Matos
Production Design
Roberta Azevedo Gomes, Elsa Bruxelas
Costumes
Rute Correia, Tânia Franco
Make-Up
Raquel Laranjo
Producers
Rita Azevedo Gomes, Basilisco Filmes, António Câmara Manuel, Duplacena

Biography

Rita Azevedo Gomes

Born in 1952 in Lisbon, Portugal. She first studied art, followed by film and theatre. In addition to being a filmmaker, she also works as a curator at Lisbon’s Cinemateca Portuguesa. Her film A Portuguesa was shown at the Berlinale Forum in 2019.

Filmography

1990 O Som da Terra a Tremer (The Sound of the Earth Shaking); 93 min. 1996 O Cinema Vai ao Teatro (Cinema Goes to the Theatre); 26 min. 1998 Intromissões: Parabéns Manoel de Oliveira (Intromissions: Congratulations Manoel de Oliveira); 55 min. 1999 King Arthur; 30 min. 2001 Frágil Como o Mundo (Fragile as the World); 91 min. 2003 Altar; 72 min. 2005 A Conquista de Faro (The Conquest of Faro); 33 min. 2007 A 15ª Pedra: Manoel de Oliveira e João Bénard da Costa em Conversa (The 15th Stone: Manoel de Oliveira and João Bénard da Costa in Conversation); 117 min. 2009 A Colecção Invisível (The Invisible Collection); 56 min. 2011 A Vingança de uma Mulher (A Woman’s Revenge); 100 min. 2016 Correspondências (Correspondences); 145 min. 2018 A Portuguesa (The Portuguese Woman); 136 min. 2020 O Ah! das coisas, 6 de Abril 2020; 2 min. 2022 O trio em mi bemol (The Kegelstatt Trio); 127 min.

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022

Produced by

Basilisco Filmes

Duplacena
duplacena.com

World Sales

Basilisco Filmes

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Principal Partners

ZDF L'Oréal

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