Historic Centre

Born in Porto, Portugal, in 1908. Before being a director, he was race driver and athlete. Made his first short silent film, Douro, Faina Fluvial, in 1931. In the 1940’s, he became a winemaker. He returned to cinema in the 1970’s with authorial films that made him one of the most unique directors in history. Oliveira had all of his movies since Ill-Fated Love (1978, 3rd Mostra) presented at the São Paulo Film Festival. He gained a complete retrospective of his work at the 15th Mostra and at the 29th Mostra, respectively in 1991 and 2005. He won Mostra’s Special Festival Award with The Cannibals (1988, 12nd Mostra), the Critics Prize for Abraham’s Valley (1993, 17th Mostra) and I’m Going Home (2001, 25th Mostra), and the Humanity Award for the ensemble of his work (2004, 28th Mostra). He also directed titles such as Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (2009, 33rd Mostra), The Strange Case of Angelica (2010, 34th Mostra), the segment From Visible to Invisible, part of the film Invisible World (2011, 35th Mostra), produced by Mostra, Gebo and the Shadow (2012, 36th Mostra) and The Old Man of Belem (2014, 38th Mostra). Died in 2015 at the age of 106.

VICTOR ERICE: THE POETRY OF LIGHT

Spanish filmmaker Víctor Erice is one of the rare cases where a short filmography is already enough to form a monumental body of work. With only three motion pictures in a more than four-decade-long career, Erice made films venturing from the philosophic to the spiritual, with characters rooted in their determined time periods, spaces and historic events, in which the lyricism and the light compositions in his shots give context to his personal, delicate and fable like films.

Born in Carranza, in 1940, Erice spent his childhood in San Sebastián. He studied film in Madrid, where he began working as a screenwriter. As a film critic, he wrote for the publications Cuadernos de Arte y pensamiento and Nuestro cine. In the 60s, he begins directing short and medium-length films, such as Páginas de un diario (1962), Los días perdidos (1963) and Entre vías (1966).

His feature film debut was The Spirit of the Beehive (El Espíritu de la Colmena, 1973), originally conceived as a horror film but turned into a more personal work, more distant from the fantasy genre, due to production restrictions. Today, the film is considered one of the most important in the history of Spanish cinema, bringing international recognition to lead actress Ana Torrent, who was only seven years old at the time.

In 1983, Erice directed El Sur (Critics’ Prize at the 8th Mostra), his second and last narrative feature. Considered an unfinished work by the director himself, the production, originally planned as an 81-day shoot, was interrupted after 48 days.

His third and last feature film to date is Dream of Light (El sol del membrillo, 1992, 16th Mostra), a portrait of the creative process behind the painting of Spanish realist painter and sculptor Antonio López. The film, a mix of documentary and fiction, received the critics’ and jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

During the last 20 years, Erice has made short films and segments for anthology films, including Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002, 27th Mostra), 3.11 Sense of Home (2011) and Historic Centre (2012, 37th Mostra).

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA