Twenty-second 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 Pedro Rodrigues’ “O Fantasma” (2000), with the filmmaker in attendance to present the film.

7 JUNE | WED | 5PM

O FANTASMA | THE GHOST

João Pedro Rodrigues | POR | 2000 | 87'

A dog barks and scratches at a closed door. Eyes and a mouth behind a black rubber mask. Sérgio has built a world tailored to his own needs. Driven by an insatiable desire, he plays only to win. Indifferent to everything, he spends his days between his rented room in a cheap boarding house, anonymous sex with other men, and his job collecting trash in the northern part of Lisbon. He has long since fallen asleep in a childhood he shares only with Lorde, the guard dog at the station, oblivious to the shadows that try to surround him: the love of Fátima, a coworker; the strange vigilance of a police officer; the foreman’s ambiguous desire… But one night his eyes meet the ghost of his dreams, and he awakens to the obsession of love. Bewitched, he spies on her. He rummages through her trash. He follows her. He breaks into her home. He urinates on her bed, marking his territory like a dog. Now he doesn’t control the game, but he presses on, even knowing he can only lose. The noose tightens. And the hands that once sought to caress are now handcuffed, addicted to rejection. All that remains is revenge. The mask of desire, the black rubber suit, becomes his final refuge. He takes shelter in chaos, in the scraps the world no longer wants.