Ninth and final session of the film programme Um Filme Falado: Os Temas de Oliveira, with conception and moderation of Anabela Mota Ribeiro. This film programme is dedicated to several themes which are present in Manoel de Oliveira's oevre. This film session concludes the cycle with the theme Mystery, with the screening of Manoel de Oliveira's Benilde or the Virgin Mother (1975) followed by a conversation with the filmmaker João Canijo and the film teacher Daniel Ribas, moderated by Anabela Mota Ribeiro.

MISTERY

7 DEC | SAT | 17h00

BENILDE OU A VIRGEM MÃE | BENILDE OR THE VIRGIN MOTHER

Manoel de Oliveira | POR | 1975 | 112’

With: João Canijo (filmmaker) and Daniel Ribas (film teacher)

Adapted from a play by José Régio, Benilde or the Virgin Mother was one of the first films that launched Manoel de Oliveira's international consecration. The film takes place during the 1930s, on an isolated manor house in Alentejo: the owner's young daughter claims to be pregnant and swears not having had any physical contact. Benilde's mysterious pregnancy, which she attributes to a supernatural intervention, raises suspicions and baffles those around her. "Benilde's strange case deals with the nuclear family, which is an institution. I remember something a provincial teacher told me, in a very concrete, realistic interpretation, that everything in the play was the result of an old-fashioned, austere and rigorous form of education" (Manoel de Oliveira)