MARIPAHASA
O.V. in Portuguese subtitled in Spanish and English
A knife, an assault, a nightmare, a wolf’s head, ground glass, violent love affairs and first aid: cinema as a train of shadows. The latest film from the Portuguese director Sandro Aguilar (A zona) emerges directly from shadows and mystery, swimming in an endless night, only letting us glimpse (and hear) parts with which to solve an enigma. A man whose daughter died in tragic circumstances works as a night watchman in a building. On the nights in his lover’s apartment, he hears his neighbour: his dog doesn’t stop barking.
Direction: Sandro Aguilar
Script: Sandro Aguilar
Cinematography: Rui Xavier
Editing: Sandro Aguilar
Sound: Miguel Moraes Cabral
Cast: António Júlio Duarte, Albano Jerónimo, Isabel Abreu, João Pedro Bénard, Eduardo Aguilar, Cláudia Éfe, Luísa Cruz, Gonçalo Waddington
Production: Luís Urbano, Sandro Aguilar
Production Company: O Som e a Fúria
Sandro Aguilar
He was born in Angola in 1974, and grew up in Portugal. He studied editing at the Academy of Cinema in Lisbon, and has been editor on some of the most interesting recent Portuguese films. In 1998 he founded the production company O Som e a Fúria, with which he has championed films by directors such as Miguel Gomes and Manoel de Oliveira. In his work as director he has an extensive filmography of short films which have won awards at many festivals, including Venice, Locarno, Bahia, Gijon, Vila do Conde and IndieLisboa, among others. He has been the subject of retrospectives in festivals such as Rotterdam, Bafici and Brooklyn. He has been twice nominated for the European Film Award for Best Short Film. Mariphasa, shown at Vila do Conde and the Berlinale, is his second feature length film after A zona, premiered at Locarno in 2008.