The Letter

Adapted from the novel, La Princesse, by Madame de la Fayette, published in the seventeenth century, bringing the story up-to-date and into the twentieth century. Mademoiselle de Chartres suffers her first disillusion in love and agrees to marry Jacques de Clèves, a well-known doctor, although she does not love him. She meets singer Pedro Abrunhosa and her heart is soon, once again, rent with passion. Pressure from this forbidden love leads her, in her dilemma, to confide in her husband. He cannot stand the weight of this disclosure and dies some months later. Now, a widow, she is still prevented from openly assuming her love for Pedro and disappears, leaving no clue. Some years later, friends receive a letter from Africa: Madame de Clèves is living with missionaries assisting the wounded and homeless in a civil war. Manoel de Oliveira defines his film as "a passionate story, with fragments of social vision that show us the disorder that, with the same cruelty as in the past, assails our incorrigible world". Shown at the 23rd Mostra.

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