Country: Algeria
Year: 2009
Duration: 127'
Julie, a young French actress who is Portuguese on her mother’s side, takes advantage of the shooting of the film adaptation of The Letters of a Portuguese Nun to go to Lisbon and try to forget a love story that ended badly. Determined to plunge headlong into the city life, every evening she meets an enigmatic person until one night, in the chapel of Nossa Senhora, she comes across a young nun kneeling in prayer. She witnesses the silent dialog between the nun and God, an experience which will leave a lasting mark on her life. “The core of the story was born in my imagination a long time ago, and was already situated in Lisbon, even if this city was only a mythical place for me. Since then, I’ve had the chance to become acquainted with the town, and I’ve seen the fictional characters grow and take root in the urban reality. In a certain way, it is through the discovery of Lisbon’s reality, in its sensual materiality and spiritual mystery, that Julie de Hauranne, the heroine of The Portuguese Nun, finds the way of her destiny, and the path to joy.”
Biography
film director
Eugène Green
(New York, USA, 1947) moved to Paris in 1969, where in 1977 he founded the Théâtre de la Sapience, with which he staged various Baroque and modern plays. He made his directorial debut with Toutes les nuits, Prix Delluc for best debut film in 2001. He then directed Le nom du feu, presented in Locarno in 2002 and distributed together with Le monde vivant, which took part in the Directors' Fortinight. With Correspondances he was awarded in 2007, together with Harun Farocki and Pedro Costa, the special jury prize in Locarno, where he returned to competition in 2009 with A Religiosa Portuguesa and in 2014 with La Sapienza, shot between Switzerland and Italy. In 2011 TFF dedicated a retrospective to him and then went on to program several of his films, such as the documentary filmed in the Basque Country Faire la parole (2015), Le fils de Joseph (2016), which premiered at the Berlinale, and the workshop film En attendant les Barbares (2017). In 2020 he returned to the Basque Country to shoot Atarrabi et Mikelats, which was presented in San Sebastian. In addition to his activity as a director, he also works as a writer and poet.
FILMOGRAFIA
Toutes les nuits (2001), Le nom du feu (cm, 2002), Le monde vivant (2003), Le pont des arts (2004), Les signes (mm, 2006), Digital Sam in Sam Saek 2007: Memories (ep. Corrispondences, mm, 2007), A Religiosa Portuguesa (2009), La sapienza (2014), Faire la parole (doc., 2015), Le fils de Joseph (2016), En attendant les Barbares (2017), Como Fernando Pessoa salvou Portugal (cm, 2017), Lisboa revisitada (cm, 2019). Atarrabi et Mikelats (2020), Le mur des morts (2022).
Cast
& Credits
regia, sceneggiatura/director, screenplay
Eugène Green
fotografia/cinematography
Raphäel O’Byrne
montaggio/film editing
Valérie Loiseleux
scenografia/production design
Zé Branco
suono/sound
Vasco Pimental
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Leonor Baldaque (Julie de Hauranne), Ana Moreira (Irmã Joana), Adrien Michaux (Martin Dautand), Beatriz Batarda (Madalena), Diogo Dória (D. Henrique Cunha Mello de Lencastre), Carloto Cotta (D. Sebastião), Francisco Mozos (Vasco), Eugène Green (Denis Verde)
produttori/producers
Luís Urbano, Sandro Aguilar
produzione/production
O Som e a Fúria, Mact Productions
coproduttore/coproducer
Martine Clermont-Tonnerre
vendita all’estero/world sales
O Som e a Fúria
