Manoel de Oliveira — Playwright (22)
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Movie

I’m Going Home (2001)
Je rentre à la maison WikiData IMDb TMDB NeoDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Michel Piccoli / Catherine Deneuve …
other title: Ritorno a casa / Vou Para Casa …
The comfortable daily routines of aging Parisian actor Gilbert Valence, 76, are suddenly shaken when he learns that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car crash. Having to take care of his now-orphaned grandson, he struggles to go on with his lifelong acting career like he's used to. But the roles he is offered -- a flashy TV show and a hectic last-minute replacement in an English-language film of Joyce's Ulysses -- finally convince him that it's time to retire.
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Movie

A Talking Picture (2003)
Um Filme Falado WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Leonor Silveira / Filipa de Almeida …
other title: Un film parlato / Um Filme Falado …
A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.
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Movie

The Convent (1995)
O Convento WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Catherine Deneuve / John Malkovich …
other title: I misteri del convento / Le Couvent …
The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England.
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Movie

Bread (1959)
O Pão WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira
other title: O Pão / Le Pain, 1re version …
Each day, Man must work around the clock to produce and acquire bread: throwing the seeds into earth, helping the breeding of the corn, the corn's recolt, transport to the mills – traditional or industrial ones – manipulation of the flour into actual bread, transport to a variety of locations and consumers. And then, after the consumption, the cycle restarts.
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Movie

The Artist and the City (1956)
O Pintor e a Cidade WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: António Cruz
other title: Il pittore e la città / O Pintor e a Cidade
The painter António Cruz wanders around the city of Porto painting what he sees: old and modern buildings, people arriving and leaving work in the factories, children playing. The impressionist realism of Cruz’s drawings dissolves into Oliveira’s vision of Porto, which at the same time portrays the painter and his work.
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Movie

The Cannibals (1988)
Os Canibais WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Luis Miguel Cintra / Leonor Silveira …
other title: I cannibali / Os Canibais …
This odd film is a major representative of an even odder film genre: direct-to-celluloid opera. It was commissioned by the Portuguese master of style, director Manoel de Oliveira from composer João Paes. Musically, it ranges from 19th-century romanticism to popular, modernist and even "post-modernist" styles. In the initially tame story, a host-narrator tells the story of a wedding between the two lovebirds: Viscount d'Aveleda and the beautiful Marguerite. However, what happens in the bridal chamber is incredibly bizarre. The events after that are even stranger, and the wedding guests and family indulge in cannibalism, among other perversions.
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Movie

Benilde or the Virgin Mother (1975)
Benilde ou a Virgem Mãe WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Maria Amélia Matta / Jorge Rolla …
other title: Benilde o la vergine madre / Benilde ou a Virgem Mãe …
A young girl, Benilde, so protected by her religious family that she seemingly knows nothing about procreation, insists that her mysterious pregnancy is a miracle; however, her distressed bourgeois family decides that Benilde has lost her mind.
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Past and Present (1972)
O Passado e o Presente WikiData IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Maria de Saisset / Manuela de Freitas …
other title: Il passato e il presente / O Passado e o Presente …
This is an intriguing avant-garde look at what motivates the leisurely classes in Portugal, for better or worse, by director Manoel de Oliveira. Set in a spacious country home peopled with a wide-ranging cast of characters, the drama begins as the friends of a widow come to console her on the loss of her husband. But at one point, the widow goes upstairs, encounters her husband, and is faced with his accusations about the past. This event and others provide the means of revealing the petty, self-serving, egocentric, and romantic pursuits of the melange of people in the house. - Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
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Movie

The Letter (1999)
La Lettre
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Chiara Mastroianni / Pedro Abrunhosa …
other title: La lettera / A Carta …
A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.
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TV

Doomed Love (1978)
Amor de Perdição IMDb TMDB
Manoel de Oliveira actor: António Sequeira Lopes / Cristina Hauser …
other title: Amor de Perdição
A story about doomed love between two people from different worlds and the impact in their lives. Based on the novel of the same name by Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco.
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Movie

Abraham's Valley (1993)
Vale Abraão
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Leonor Silveira / Luís Miguel Cintra …
other title: La valle del peccato / Vale Abraão …
Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.
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Movie

Acte du Printemps (1963)
Acto da Primavera
Manoel de Oliveira actor: Nicolau Nunes da Silva / Ermelinda Pires …
other title: Atto di primavera / Acto da Primavera
Local people of Curalha, a small village, keep a tradition of representing the Passion of Jesus, according to a 16th century text.