Mãos no Fogo
Hands in the Fire | Mani nel fuoco
by
MOVIE CATEGORY
Maria do Mar is making a documentary on the ancient villas of the Douro valley, a river in Portugal. As soon as she enters the last villa she needs to shoot, and begins to interview the family that inhabits it, she understands that something is off. The children are behaving in a strange way and the other family members are ambiguously winking, or severe, or shy. Something lies beyond the obvious.
Freely adapting The Turn of the Screw by Henry James but taking it to other unpredictable shores, Margarida Gil weaves a mystery plot that questions reality and the limits of perception. Intriguing, disorienting and alienating characters move on a ghostly chessboard, while everyday truth breaks into pictorial scenarios and unsettling still lifes, as in a theatre of illusions.
DIRECTORY
Portuguese director, teacher and artist, president of the Association of Portuguese Directors, wife of João César Monteiro, Margarida Gil was born in 1950 in Portugal, and studied Art and Germanic Philology in Lisbon. After some collaborations on the radio and in Monteiro’s films, she made her first features, first documentaries (like 1975’s Clínica Comunal Popular da Cova da Piedade awarded at the Dok Leipzig), then Tv movies, until her directorial debut Recção Fiel e Verdadeira (1987), screened for the first time at Venice Film Festival. Her films have been presented in Locarno, in Rome, in Berlin.
