Bafici
Program
Venues and Tickets
Paulo Branco is an essential part of the cinema we’ve learned from and made us absolutely happy cinephiles. He is a producer/promoter of many of the films we’ve seen in previous editions of Bafici and stayed with us forever, with a base in Portugal (which means João César Monteiro, Manoel de Oliveira, Pedro Costa…) but extending beyond its borders and including Raoul Ruiz, Chantal Akerman, Jerzy Skolimowski, Werner Schroeter, and many others in his family. An endless list of auteurs, some of them with a solid body of work and others who were only debutants, who Branco was quick enough to support, moving away from his comfort zone, assuming the risks of producing art house films, and turning cinema into an adventure out of the structure of consecrating institutions. Branco has signed his name on films that are hugely different from each other, yet share an idea of relentless artistic setting and a status that remains indifferent to the canon. This tribute, as restricted as it is within his infinite body of work, picks up some of his most recent films, and revisits others that seem to be projecting here from the future. It’s the celebration of a cinema whose uniqueness affirms and expands the world around it. MA
Two characters want to get away from their lives for a bit. Witold and Fuchs leave their exams and jobs aside and settle in a place that hopefully will provide them with a quiet time. However, they end up in a disturbing place that will progressively turn into all the things they didn’t expect...
One night in April 1957, 19-year-old Albertina escaped prison where she was serving a sentence for robbery. While escaping, she breaks an anklebone called astragalus. She will jump from one hiding spot to another, struggling to remain free.
Two Portuguese officers arrive to a remote ivory trade post in Congo, where they must get the business flowing again after the death of the former station chief. But the hired workers do very little to find new reserves.