Christopher Columbus: the Enigma

Portuguese doctor Manuel Luciano da Silva has fostered an obsession since the forties: he is fascinated by Christopher Columbus and is in search of his true identity. He believes the discoverer may have been Portuguese in origin and that he was not born in Genoa, today an Italian city, as emphasized in the most accepted official version. To prove his hypothesis, he sets forth in search of evidence of the navigator throughout up-country Portugal and also in the United States, to where he migrated in his youth in search of work. Married and with his wife, Manuel reaches a small Portuguese town named Cuba in the region of Alentejo where Columbus’ parents are said to have lived and brought up their son in childhood. Later in his navigations, Columbus christened the Caribbean island he discovered with the name of his home town. The doctor also goes to Porto Santo, one of the Madeira Islands where Columbus is said to have lived with his wife. The film is based on the book “Cristóvão Colombo Era Português”, written by Manuel Luciano da Silva in partnership with his wife Silvia Jorge da Silva. In a rare appearance on screen, director Manoel de Oliveira and his wife Maria Isabel play the main couple in their old age.

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.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA