Cannes Film Festival 2022

Official Selection – Special Screenings

Lucca Film Festival – Marcello Petrozziello Award

Ourense Film Festival – Calpurnia for Best Film

46ª Mostra de São Paulo

Sophia Awards 2023

Best Director – Tiago Guedes 
Best Actor – Albano Jerónimo
Best Supporting Actor – Nuno Lopes

With

Albano Jerónimo - Laureano

Nuno Lopes - Samuel
Isabel Abreu - Judite

João Pedro Vaz - Paulo
Gonçalo Waddington - Vítor
Leonor Vasconcelos - Salomé

with the special participation of Maria João Pinho

Director: Tiago Guedes
Screenplay: Tiago Rodrigues and Tiago Guedes
Producers: Paulo Branco, Ana Pinhão Moura
DOP: Mark Bliss ACK
Editor: Marcos Castiel BFE
Art director: Isabel Branco
Costumes: Isabel Carmona
Sound engineer: Pierre Tucat
Sound editing and mix: Pedro Góis
Delegate producer: Mariana Marta Branco

A Leopardo Filmes
and Alfama Films Production
production 

in co-production with
ARTE France Cinéma
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal
and APM Produções

with the financial participation of
Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual
Fundo de Apoio ao Turismo e ao Cinema
ARTE France and CMTV

with the support of
Câmara Municipal de Penamacor
and Junta de Freguesia de Meimão

International sales and festivals: Alfama Films

I have always wondered about the reasons behind violence amongst people. Today more than ever, this question remains one without any possible or tangible answers. We live in a society that advances in time but does not evolve, it eats itself, forever more detached from nature, producing in excess with only profit in mind. A society that forgets those that for one reason or another stay behind, those that cannot keep up, or choose not to.

This film is born from the need to reflect upon the violence exerted by the strongest upon the weakest, this illusion of power that swarms us in all aspects of society. It seeks to examine the loss of innocence, where it occurs and for what reasons.

And perhaps the biggest goal was to reflect upon fear. On how it conditions us, how it transforms us and thwarts reality.

The background setting of this film is the confrontation between the fundamental nobleness of human beings and that which we call human malice, often born from fear and ignorance of anything that is different or strange. An ancestral confrontation that society camouflages, hides, and does not have the knowledge or culture necessary to be able to eradicate it.

From there was born the need to reflect on the rites of passage (here represented through a semi-pagan ancestral tradition), almost always connected to violent and misogynistic manifestations that try to in some form symbolizes that extreme “separation” where a social status is abandoned so as to acquire another.

The need to belong to a group, the desire to be accepted by those we deem strongest, as well as the desire and need to humiliate the weakest, are unfortunately traits which are still too current, and certain traditions, not only from old rituals, appear to want to legitimize the way in which groups exert their power and violence upon others. See all kinds of hazing practices, for instance, which exist in so many forms.

A community that hides the crimes of its past, that does not examine them and does not redeem itself, will be incapable of preventing future violence. It will live forever haunted. It is the shadow that arrives before the body. It is the anticipation of what might happen. A fear that changes perceptions and makes the world see through its distorted lens. A fear of anything that is different and unknown, a fear that leads to the violence and injustice which define our world. There are no morals, because there is no space for them. There is only tragedy. And fear.