Country: Portugal
Year: 2006
Duration: 95'


He and she don’t know each other but, both at loose ends, they meet at a gas station somewhere on the highway between Lisbon and Oporto. Almost without saying a word, they drive off in his car. What follows are the gas stations, the motels, the conversations and the silences, the revelations and the mysteries. She hopes he will take her to a primordial, almost mythical place: her grandmother’s home. In their solitude, each one of them can, simply, lose themselves or meet each other.

“The voyage of 98 Octanas is composed of a double geography. Crossing the country from one gas station to the next, Dinis and Maria are castaways of an era whose violence they are all too acquainted with, even if they don’t know what to say or what to do to fight all its daily manifestations. In a utopia, they would have formed a romantic couple dedicated to the charm of their own enigma. But what they do is move toward that vanishing point represented by the house of Maria’s grandmother, almost as though they were asking themselves, ‘Could it be we’re having a relationship? Could it be that we might still have a relationship?’” (F. Lopes)

Biography

film director

Fernando Lopes

Fernando Lopes (Alvaiazere, Portugal, 1935), after working at Radio Televisão Portuguesa, won a scholarship for London’s School of Film Technics. In 1964 he debuted with Belarmino, first film of New Portuguese Cinema followed 7 years later by Uma Abelha na Chuva (1971), based on the novel by the famous Portuguese author Carlos De Oliveira. Throughout the 1980s he continued to divide his time between television programs and directing films like Crónica dos Bons Malandros (1984), another adaptation of a novel. Books were once again the inspiration for O Fio do Horizonte (1993), based on a novel by Antonio Tabucchi. 98 Octanas, his most recent work, includes the collaboration of the
well-known Portuguese critic, João Lopes.

FILMOGRAFIA

Belarmino (doc., 1964), Cruzeiro do Sul (cm, 1966), Hoje à Estreia (cm, 1967), Uma Abelha na Chuva (1971), A Aventura Calculada (1972), Nacionalidade: Português (doc., 1972), O Encoberto (1975), Nós Por Cá Todos Bem (1976), Lisboa (TV, 1979), Crónica dos Bons Malandros (1984), Matar Saudades (1988), O Fio do Horizonte (1993), Gérard, Fotógrafo (TV, 1998), Cinema (cm, 2001), O Delfim (2002), Lá Fora (2004), 98 Octanas (2006)

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