Oliveira returned to the center of Portugal’s film scene in the 1960s with Acto da Primavera, a work that marks a significant change in the director’s trajectory and that initiates some of the cinematic strategies that he would develop more fully in later films. In Acto da Primavera, Oliveira offers a version of a popular representation of the Passion of Christ, enacted by members of a rural community in northern Portugal, derived from the Auto da Paixão de Jesus Cristo (1559), by Francisco Vaz de Guimarães.
Year: 2019
Marisa Fuentereal remembers the days of resistance in the sanctuary of the Virgen de la Cabeza. There he met Aracil, a man of extremist ideas that saved her from enemy troops, then Captain Cortés, who died in the final battle with the most defenders.
A hardened career navel officer must come to terms with adapting to civilian life with the help of a waitress that can see through his tough veneer.
Infidelity threatens to break up a marriage in this evocative feature from legendary Japanese director Mikio Naruse. Tsuma concerns the struggles of a woman who finds out that her husband is cheating on her; to avoid the stigma of a broken marriage, she decides she’ll do whatever it takes to keep him with her. Tsuma was adapted from a story by Fumiko Hayashi, who wrote about women’s cultural struggles in 1950s Japan and whose writings formed the basis for five other Naruse films.
When Carolina, the daughter of wealthy banker Georges de Saxe, is reported kidnapped, it is upsetting to him even though he knows it isn’t true. The kidnappers have taken the wrong person. The banker hires Frantz a disheveled, seedy detective to find his daughter and hide her safely away. She soon finds herself in a fantasy-land whorehouse, where all kinds of extreme perversions are routinely practiced.
The lives of the affluent residents of an exclusive town in the French countryside converge at a chateau owned by Marie-Agnes de Bayonette, a feisty, physically disabled woman, and maintained by her elderly cousin, Solange. When de Bayonette dies suddenly, cultures and personalities clash as an international cast of characters — including real estate vultures, bargain hunters and numerous distant cousins — descend upon the chateau.
King Henry VIII wants to divorce his wife, and seeks the approval of the aristocracy. Sir Thomas More is a man of principle and reason, and is thus placed in a difficult position: should he stand up for his principles, risking the wrath of a corrupt King fond of executing people for treason? Or should he bow to the seemingly unstoppable corruption of King Henry VIII, who has no qualms about bending the law to suit his own needs?