'Fifteenth screening in the film programme Manoel de Oliveira e o Cinema Português 3, held in conjunction with the third part of the exhibition of the same name. The screening will feature João Mário Grilo’s “O Fim do Mundo” (1993), with the filmmaker himself in attendance to introduce the film.

13 MAY | WED | 5PM

O FIM DO MUNDO

João Mário Grilo | POR, FRA | 1993 | 61'

With a sharp swing of his hoe, Augusto Henriques killed Conceição das Neves. All because of a water dispute—a trifling matter, one of those squabbles that are part of everyday life in the countryside. It may have been a trifling matter, but no one can deny that there is now a corpse lying there, where just a moment ago there was a woman, even if she was old. Conceição is no more. At 65, Augusto had never been in jail, nor had he been tried; he’d never had any run-ins with the police or the courts. Deep down, he doesn’t even think he’s guilty, since it was that devil of a woman, Conceição, who ducked—he’d aimed for her shoulder. But what’s done is done; otherwise, the woman wouldn’t be lying dead up there. The best thing for Augusto to do is to surrender himself to the justice of men. In court, the judge, showing mercy, sentences him to fourteen years, “because of his age and good behavior.” Long before that, however, Augusto will return to the places that were once his. To discover that, with a single swing of a sickle—dry and poorly aimed—the world might even come to an end.