Best International Feature: France, Portugal, Spain

by Cláudio Alves

Europe is the most represented continent in the history of the Best International Feature Oscar. However, while some of its countries are regularly honored, others have been submitting for decades without luck. France, for instance, is the reigning champion of the category, having been nominated forty times. In contrast, Portugal - my country – holds the record for the most submissions without a single nod. For this chapter in our trip through world cinema, we arrive at these two nations' 2020 submissions as well as Spain's Netflix contender…

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What will be Portugal's choice?

by Cláudio Alves

Just this weekend, I was singing the praises of Pedro Costa's Vitalina Varela. Lo and behold, the shadowy chamber drama is one of four finalists for Portugal's Oscar submission. A jury of the Portuguese Film Academy, made up of directors Gonçalo Galvão Teles, Lauro António and Monique Rutler, actors Isabel Abreu and Welket Bungué, and cinematographer Miguel Sales Lopes, has selected their finalists from a list of 33 eligible features. The quartet of lucky films are…

 

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Portuguese Cinema on Criterion

by Cláudio Alves

It's not often that one gets the opportunity to promote Portuguese cinema in these parts of the internet. Despite good reviews and some acclaim across the festival circuit, it's rare to find films from Portugal being discussed internationally. Even though I love my country's pictures, I find it difficult to justify writing a piece about them for The Film Experience, especially considering plenty of readers don't have access to said films. When the opportunity strikes, one can't waste it. 

Recently, the Criterion Channel has curated two collections focused on the works of Pedro Costa and João Pedro Rodrigues, some of Portugal's most important contemporary filmmakers [some NSFW images after the jump]...

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Review: "The Domain," Portugal's Oscar Submission

by Cláudio Alves

The Domain opens with the sort of scene that works as a mission statement. Its first image seems like something out of a western, a vast landscape, the horizon slashed by the silhouette of a great big tree. From one of its branches, a body hangs by a noose. It’s the eldest son of the rich owner of all the land we can see. The father, far from being heartbroken, watches on dispassionately, a glint of disappointment in his eye.

In an act of cruelty, the patriarch forces his youngest son to confront the corpse of his brother, his weak brother. Frightened, young João runs away from the morbid tableaux, taking refuge in the mossy ruins that stand in the middle of a nearby river. Death, parental cruelty, coldness confused with strength and an escape from the horror of reality to the warm embrace of a long-forgotten past - such are the main themes of this epic, shot like a western and paced like a funeral...

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Portugal's Oscar Finalists

by new contributor Claudio Alvez

a biopic on the queer 1980s singer António Variações could be Portugal's Oscar submission

In the history of the Best International Film Oscar (formerly known as Best Foreign Language Film) no country has as many failed submissions as Portugal. It’s been submitting films every year since 1980 and yet, not one of them has managed to secure a nomination. As a Portuguese cinephile and Oscar buff this has always saddened me and I doubt this Awards season will change anything. 

At the moment, there are four finalists for the Oscar submission. A special jury has selected Rage, Parque Mayer, Variações: Guardian Angel and The Domain. Following this, the Portuguese Academy of Cinema (Academia Portuguesa de Cinema) will vote on the eventual Oscar submission. The results should be known this month, perhaps around the time The Domain arrives at Portuguese cinemas. Right now, it’s the only one that hasn’t opened yet, having just been shown at the Venice Film Festival where it’s competing for the Golden Lion. It’s also the only finalist I haven’t watched, though I can give an overview of the four films...

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