05/12/2005

Not simply the biggest national box office hit in 2005 but also one of most seen Portuguese films ever: 218.500 people have seen Carlos Coelho da Silva's The Crime of the Father Amaro so far. Co produced by TV broadcaster SIC and Utopia Filmes, the adaptation of the 19th novel by Eça de Queirós has just entered the Top Five Portuguese films, which includes Joaquim Leitão's Tentação with 350.000 moviegoers, also Leitão's Adão e Eva (254.000), Leonel Vieira's Zona J (246.000) and António Pedro Vasconcelos's Jaime (220.000).

Released on the 27th October in 25 theatres (read the article), Lusomundo distributes The Crime of the Father Amaro on the screens of 80 venues throughout the country.
As for national productions, the other successes of the year are Um Tiro no Escuro (A shot in the dark) by Leonel Vieira (read the article) with 28.571 tickets sold and. Marco Martins's acclaimed first feature Alice (see the Film Focus) which was seen by 30.612 people and grossed 128.100€ so far. The film was nominated for the Fassbinder Award from the European Film Academy and its lead actor, Nuno Lopes, will be the 2006 Portuguese Shooting Star attending the Berlin Film Festival in February.