11/10/2007

Unlike Italy, where films like The Best of Youth [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and My Brother Is an Only Child [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Daniele Luchetti
interview: Riccardo Tozzi
film profile] manage to touch audiences and reflect upon Italy's recent history, Portuguese cinema still has a long way to go when it comes to exploring the country's 40-year dictatorship and its consequences, which are still felt today.

Promoted under the tagline "It's time to wake up the past", Leonel Vieira's new film O Julgamento (“The trial”) tries to do just that while avoiding a predictable and politically correct approach to the theme.

O Julgamento opens in 1970 with the torture and murder of a man by the regime’s secret police. Nearly 40 years later, his friend, who had also been tortured, recognises the man he deems responsible for the murder of his friend. Along with three old friends and the victim’s daughter, they kidnap the man and take him to an isolated house. Once there, the concepts of justice and revenge begin to mix dangerously in a private trial with irreversible consequences.

Produced by Vieira's Stopline Filmes in co-production with private channel TVI, the film hits screens today, distributed by Castello Lopes. Popular actors such as Alexandra Lencastre, Júlio César, Fernanda Serrano and Henrique Viana (in his last role before his death) along with a strong marketing campaign are expected to pull in audiences, for results expected to exceed the director's previous film, Um tiro no escuro.

In the meantime, the prolific Vieira has begun shooting a new film entitled A Arte de Matar (“The Art of Killing”).

Other European titles released this week are Paul Auster’s Portuguese/French co-production The Inner Life of Martin Frost (distribution: Atalanta, see news) and British director Julian Jarrold’s Becoming Jane [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Lusomundo), starring Anne Hathaway as legendary author Jane Austen.