17° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
Retrospective - Portuguese Cinema (1970-1999)

TEMPOS DIFÍCEIS

HARD TIMES

Country: Portugal

Year: 1988

Duration: 90'

In adapting the novel by Dickens to modern reality, the film circumscribes an imaginary city within an urban space. Poço do Mundo (The Well of the World), a mass of miserable people and a small number of well-off inhabitants. Tomás Cremalheira, the principal of the school and future representative in Parliament; his fragile wife Teresa; their two children, Luisa and Tomazinho, educated with "mathematical precision" but caught peaking in at a circus; the nouveau-riche José Grandela; Cecilia, an acrobat's daughter and a model-student of professor Cremalheira.

FILM DIRECTOR

CAST & CREDITS

Biography

film director

João Botelho

João Botelho (Lamego, Portogallo, 1949) enrolled at the Film School at Lisbon's National Conservatory in 1974, and in 1976 founded the film magazine "M." He worked as a graphic artist for a number of publishers and as a film critic for several newspapers and magazines. In 1981 his short film Conversa acabada was presented in Cannes Film Festival and made him one of the leading figures of Portuguese cinema. He received international critical acclaim for his following films, Tempos difíceis (1988), Aqui na terra (1993), Tráfico (1998), Que és tu? (2001). His last film O Fatalista (2005) has been presented in competition at the last Mostra di Venezia.

FILMOGRAFIA

O alto do cobre (1976), Alexandre e Rosa (cm, 1978), Conversa acabada (1980), Um adeus português (1985), Tempos difíceis (1988), No dia dos meus anos - O ar (1992), Aqui na terra (1993), Três palmeiras (1994), Tráfico (1998), Se a memória existe (cm, 1999), Quem és tu? (2001), As mãos e as pedras (2002), Viagem ao coração do Douro, a terra onde nasci (doc., 2002), A mulher que screditava ser presidente dos Estados Unidos da America (2002), O Fatalista (2005), A luz na Ria Formosa (doc., 2005).

Cast

& Credits

Director and screenplay: João Botelho.
Plot: dal romanzo Hard Times for This Times di Charles Dickens.
Director of photography: Elso Roque.
Costume designer: Virginia Leitão, Jasmin, Paula Ferreira, Nadia Baggioli, José Faria.
Art director: Luís Monteiro.
Sound: Joaquim Pinto.
Music: António Pinho Vargas.
Editor: João Botelho, Leonor Guterres, Manuel Mozos.
Cast and characters: Henrique Viana (José Grandela), Julia Britton (Luísa), Eunice Muñoz (signora Vilaverde), Ruy Furtado (Tomás Cremalheira), Isabel de Castro (Teresa Cremalheira), Joaquim Mendes (Sebastião).
Produttori: João Botelho, Andy Engel.
Production company: Artificial Eye Film Productions.