Our Beloved Month of August

Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto

(Portugal, 2008, 150 mins)

35mm

North American Premiere

Producers: Luís Urbano, Sandro Aguilar
Screenwriters: Miguel Gomes, Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro
Cinematographer: Rui Poças
Editor: Music: Mariana Ricardo (Music Arrangement)
Cast: Sónia Bandeira, Fábio Oliveira, Joaquim Carvalho

Miguel Gomes’ playfully peculiar documentary-fiction hybrid is steeped in the atmosphere of summer in a mountainous region of Portugal. There, locals who have emigrated return to their villages in August to pass the summer at swimming holes, boar hunts, village fairs, and in town squares where area musicians play their hearts out at evening festivals. Out of this rich setting, a narrative slowly emerges about the growing tensions between a father, a daughter, and her cousin who play in a traveling band.

As much as it’s an evocation of a particular time and place, Gomes’ mischievous experiment is also an exploration of storytelling, a kaleidoscope of tales both true and false. Staged sequences in which Gomes and his crew re-enact the story of the film’s production; yarns that the village people tell of their own lives, but also of murders, hauntings, and other strange local lore; and the stories spun in the lyrics of ballads full of love, jealousy, and other dark passions, all meld together to form an uncommon treat for adventurous moviegoers

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