Second screening of the film programme Miguel Gomes — Full Retrospective and Carte Blanche, which explores the dialogue between the director’s filmography and his universe of cinematic influences. The session includes Miguel Gomes’ short films “31” (2001), “Pre-Evolution Soccer’s One-Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League” (2004), “Canticle of All Cratures” (2006), and “Redemption” (2013).

31

Miguel Gomes | POR | 2001 | 28’

“This is the grip for the forehand stroke. To execute it, knowing the ball is coming from the right, we’ll naturally bring the racket back. With my left shoulder turned toward me—which is where the ball is coming from… Naturally, you step forward with your left foot and execute the stroke.”

PRE EVOLUTION SOCCER’S ONE-MINUTE DANCE AFTER A GOLDEN GOAL IN THE MASTER LEAGUE

Miguel Gomes | POR | 2004 | 1’

A one-minute dance after a golden goal in the Master League.

CANTICLE OF THE CREATURES

Miguel Gomes | POR | 2006 | 24’

Assisi, 2005: A troubadour wanders the streets of St. Francis’s hometown, singing and playing the Canticle of Brother Sun, or Song of the Creatures—a text St. Francis wrote in the winter of 1224. Forests of Umbria, the year 1212: While preaching to the birds, St. Francis suddenly faints. Revived by St. Clare, the saint seems strangely absent and without memory. As night falls, the animals of the forest sing in praise of Francis. But this love that is sung begins to breed a sense of possession, a desire for exclusivity—what we commonly call jealousy.

REDEMPTION

Miguel Gomes | POR, FRA, GER, ITA | 2013 | 26’

In 1975, in northern Portugal, a child writes to his parents in Angola to tell them how sad Portugal is. In 2011, in Milan, an old man recalls how he let love slip away. In 2012, in Paris, a man tells his infant daughter that he will never be a real father. At a wedding in Leipzig in 1977, the bride struggles with a Wagner opera that she can’t get out of her head. A short film where reality and imagination intersect through archival footage that weaves together fragments of the lives of four politicians: Pedro Passos Coelho, Nicolas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi, and Angela Merkel.