Manuela Cassola
The film is set in Lisbon, and tells the story of a day in the life of Rita and Paulo, a Portuguese young couple of the 90's. The fast changing city around them makes them wish to break with all traditions and live the day the get married (only civil marriage) like it is an ordinary day.
Cristina is twenty years old. Her father was declared missing in action during the war in Angola many years before. One day in church the girl meets a man about fifty years old who tries various times, unsuccessfully, to make the sign of the cross. The man is called Cristovão. A few days later the two meet again. The man offers to help her look for her father. A relationship based on memories and confessions is formed between them. But soon they each return to their own solitude.
Portugal 1938. Pereira is the editor of the culture section of the "Lisboa," an unaffiliated evening paper. There is a civil war in Spain and the fascists are in power in Portugal, but he concerns himself only with his work – writing biographies of famous writers and translating French novels – and ignores what is going on around him. He hires Monteiro Rossi, an idealistic young man in love with a beautiful communist, as an assistant. He reluctantly helps them when they begin to get into trouble due to subversive activities. Eventually, events force him to take a stand.
A Visigoth count conquers a small village town from the Moors in the Lusitanian mountains, only to loose his possessions through the mysterious workings of a woman from parts unknown.
At the time Portugal presented a strange spectacle to the rest of Europe. D. Afonso VI, son of the fortunate D. João de Bragança, was in possession of the throne and was an insane imbecile. His wife, daughter of the Duke of Nemours and cousin of Louis XIV, dared hatch a plot to oust her husband from the throne. The king's stupidity justified the queen's bravado. Despite being master of unusual strength and having slept with his wife for a long time, she accused him of being impotent. Marie Françoise had acquired through artfulness what Afonso had lost in anger in the kingdom. She had him imprisoned ( November 1667 ) and quickly obtained a papal bull from Rome to confirm her virginity and bless her marriage to her brother-in-law Pedro. Portugal's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1990.
A story about character created by Reinaldo Ferreira (1897-1935), action reporter, mystery novelist and emotion journalist.
