I’m Going Home

The film is set in dazzling Paris, early in the year 2000. Gilbert Valence has had a long brilliant career as an actor in the theater. He has just been given the role of Beranger 1st in Exit the King, by Eugène Ionesco. Suddenly, tragedy crosses his path: his agent and old friend George tells him that his wife, his daughter and son-in-law have all of them been killed in a road accident. But life must go on, and Gilbert is, henceforth, to divide his time between his small grandson whom he worships and the stage. His new role is Prospero, the hero in Shakespeare?s The Tempest. George then comes up with a proposal that would be financially gratifying, namely, to act the role of main character for a TV film, with all of the components that are so much the rage today: sex, drugs, and violence. Gilbert has played the greatest roles an actor can aspire to, feels ill-used, and refuses. "It?s a matter of wisdom gained through experience", says director Manoel de Oliveira. Shown at the 25th 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