Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira and Me

An old photograph taken 36 years ago.  His hand rests on my shoulder. A blessing, a gift.Then a history of over four decades of friendship, admiration and apprenticeship. A journey into Oliveira’s cinema, his method, his way of filming and his extraordinary cinematographic inventions.  He lived for over a century, over a century of cinema, cinema in its entirety. His turns of fortune and his knowledge, my own turns of fortune. For him, and for me now, documentary and fiction films go hand in hand; it is all about cinema. So I had the audacity to film a magnificent story that Manoel loved but never filmed, one that he left behind as if his hand and eyes were close to God, or among the gods, and he was steering me so that even now he can continue to film through me.

FESTIVALS:

[2016] IndieLisboa - International Independent Film Festival [Portugal]
[2016] Locarno Film Festival [Switzerland]
[2016] International Intangible Heritage Film Festival [South Korea]
[2016] Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo [Brazil]
[2016] Viennale Film Festival [Austria]
[2016] Ourense Film Festival [Spain]
[2016] Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife (João Sampaio Award) [Brazil]
[2016] Panorama Internacional Coisa de Cinema de São Salvador da Bahia [Brazil]
[2016] The Portuguese Conspiracy [United Kingdom]
[2016] Caminhos do Cinema Português [Portugal]
[2016] Mostra de Cinema Português de Hoje - Cineclube da Ilha Terceira [Portugal] 
[2017] Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century [Greece]
[2017] Punto de Vista [Spain]
[2017] Prémios Sophia [Portugal]
[2017] Cinéma du Réel [France]
[2017] Hong Kong International Film Festival [Hong Kong]
[2017] Festival Cinematográfico Internacional del Uruguay [Uruguay]
[2017] BAFICI [Argentina]
[2017] Pesaro Film Festival [Italy]
[2017] Mostra de Cinema Português em Macau [Macao]
[2017] "Pacific Meridian" - Vladivostok International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Сountries [Russia]
[2017] Les Écrans Documentaires [France]
[2018] Cinema SOIR, Évora [Portugal]
[2018] Documentary Film Club Close Up in Kyiv [Ukraine]
[2019] Cinemateca Portuguesa [Portugal]