Born in 1972 in Lisbon, Gomes attended the Lisbon Theatre and Film School before trying his hand at film criticism in the Portuguese press between 1996 and 2000. He directed his first short film in 1999 and five more in subsequent years, but it wasn’t until 2004 that Gomes released his first full-length feature The Face You Deserve, followed by Our Beloved Month of August in 2008 and Tabu in 2011.
"Given their scarce production means, Portuguese films share a common liberty which exists precisely because there’s no such thing as money exerting pressure over creative freedom," Gomes explains. A proud figure among the ranks of Portuguese filmmakers such as Oliveira, de Monteiro and de Costa, and his favorite film being Renoir’s The River; Gomes was first struck with the desire to make movies as a young boy after watching Raiders of the Lost Ark whilst daydreaming about directing a remake of The Wizard of Oz.
Although none of Gomes’s films resemble one another, they are all marked by a penchant for simultaneous melancholy and euphoria, in the vein of the Portuguese "saudade". Similarly, the films brim with humor, generosity and inventiveness, whether it be within the treatment of image and sound or through the construction of the narrative itself. His movies share a taste for travel, baseless themes, minor story lines (regardless of their relevance to the main plot) and individual as well as collective memories.
Currently engrossed with the promotional run for Tabu as well as his teaching stint in Fresnoy (France), Gomes has little time to spare for his other projects. He has therefore delegated the preparation of his next film to his "Central Committee", whose task consists of "peeling apart newspapers and setting aside the most absurd stories presently taking place in Portugal within today’s context of crisis and social agitation. Animal stories, human stories, stories of the rich and the poor... The idea is to draw inspiration from these snippets in order to create independent vignettes. We will work on this for a year and then shoot the stories pretty much as they unfold, before actually binding together the structure of the film itself which will be narrated by Shéhérazade. The goal is to deliver an accurate portrayal of Portugal at a very precise moment in time." The project will fittingly be titled "One Thousand and One Nights".
"It is necessary to write a script in order to have a shot of getting your film funded. This isn’t very romantic, but that’s the way it goes. For several reasons, I inevitably end up filming something completely different than what was first written. Until now, things have gone smoothly and the movies have been successful, so I’ve never been asked to return any of the money I’ve been given. I’ll continue to work in this fashion because I am fated to make films which are only loosely related to the the original script, which I feel no responsibility to accurately render because that is not my view of cinema in general. Whatever is set on paper is nothing more than a cocoon, and we never know exactly what the butterfly within will look like. In the end, a cocoon is rather ugly, isn’t it? Just like a script." - Miguel Gomes
The screening held on January 11th will be shown in the presence of Miguel Gomes and Mariana Ricardo. A combined ticket is valid for the entire evening (film + Mariana Ricardo’s concert)
Log in