Some films show pride in their singularity: projects that are difficult to pigeonhole and which draw neither on heritage nor genre for inspiration. One could say that Marco Martins first feature film was directed in the spirit of such wilful independence. Alice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marco Martins
interview: Nuno Lopes
film profile], awarded the Jeunes Regards prize at the Cannes Festival 2005 (where it was part of the Directors’ Fortnight programme), is an atypical production within the Portuguese cinema – of both the present and the past – but is also, or especially, the tale of a loss that resists the all too easy temptation to succumb to melodrama, the story of a quest free of the trappings of suspense. See the Film Focus