23/12/2015 - António-Pedro Vasconcelos’ new film is the last Portuguese title to be released this year

Film-wise, Christmas Eve is not always about animated features in shopping-mall multiplexes and The Sound of Music on the TV screen. Sometimes distributors decide to save the date to release unexpected titles, and that’s just what Big Picture Films has done this year.

24 December has been chosen as the release date for António-Pedro Vasconcelos’ Amor Impossível [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Victória Guerra
film profile] (lit. “Impossible Love”), which thus becomes the last local feature to receive theatrical distribution in 2015.

Shot in the inland city of Viseu, Amor Impossível is loosely based on a real story. With a double narrative arc, it tells the story of a teenage girl, Cristina, who disappears mysteriously. Her boyfriend Tiago believes she has been kidnapped – a theory that police investigators (and clandestine lovers) Madalena and Marco find hard to believe.

The cast includes up-and-coming actors Vitória Guerra and José Mata as the teenage couple, alongside Ricardo Pereira and Soraia Chaves – who is collaborating with Vasconcelos for the third time, after the thriller Call Girl [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and the romantic comedy A Bela e o Paparazzo.

The film also marks a new chapter in the successful collaboration between three people who have been working together over the last decade: veteran director Vasconcelos, scriptwriter Tiago Santos and producer Tino Navarro (MGN Filmes). Their previous effort, Os Gatos Não Têm Vertigens [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], released in 2014, amassed nearly 95,000 admissions and grossed €477,577. It ended up being the 15th most-seen Portuguese film ever; Amor Impossível will have the difficult task of rivalling those figures.