Seventh session of the film programme Um Filme Falado: Os Temas de Oliveira, with conception and moderation by Anabela Mota Ribeiro. This film programme is dedicated to several themes which are present in Manoel de Oliveira's oevre. This film session deals with the theme Death, with the screening of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946), followed by a conversation with the filmmaker Catarina Vasconcelos and the curator and researcher Guilherme Blanc, moderated by Anabela Mota Ribeiro.

DEATH

5 OCT | SAT | 17h00

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger | UK | 1946 | 104’

With: Catarina Vasconcelos (filmmaker) e Guilherme Blanc (curator and researcher)

One of the first color films of The Archers, the partnership between the Englishman Michael Powell and the Hungarian Emeric Pressburger, A Matter of Life and Death was a initally suggested by the British government, to ease Anglo-American relations during World War II. In the film, Peter, a young English pilot about to crash, talks to June, an American radio operator, falling in love with her, before jumping to death over the English Channel. But due to the heavy fog over the channel, an emissary from ""the other world"" fails to catch Peter, allowing him to survive and to follow his love. Meanwhile, ""the other world"" recognizes the mistake and sends an angel to escort Peter to his destiny. The lightness with which Powell and Pressburger deal with the theme of Death is a true challenge on the severity of the theme, as they offer a hopeful and beautiful point of view on a theme which is perennially disquieting.