Portuguese director Laura Carreira won the debut feature film competition at the 68th London Film Festival, United Kingdom, with “On Falling”, the organization announced this Sunday.
The jury found “On Falling” “a richly layered portrait of a world ruled by the corporate profit motive, as seen in the story of an immigrant woman whose alienation is felt deeply, told with masterful cinematic precision and understated, lived-in performance.” , reads a statement released by the festival organization.
“On Falling” is, for the judges, a “powerful, mesmerizing and daring” first feature film.
Laura Carreira’s first feature film, after having directed the “shorts” “Red Hill” (2918) and “The Shift” (2020), was distinguished in September with the Silver Shell for best direction at the São Paulo Film Festival. San Sebastian, Spain, ex-aequo with “El llanto”, by Pedro Martín-Cale.
In all of her films, Laura Carreira explores issues linked to work and precariousness.
In “On Falling”, the central figure is Aurora, a young Portuguese emigrated to Scotland, who works in a warehouse and faces difficulties in subsistence and socializing in a house shared with others. immigrants.
Starring actress Joana Santos, “On Falling” had its world premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, in Canada.
“On Falling” is produced by the Portuguese BRO Cinema, in co-production with the United Kingdom, through Sixteen Films, co-founded by director Ken Loach.
Laura Carreira, who was born in Porto in 1994, moved to Scotland in 2012 to study Cinema, coinciding with the economic crisis that hit Portugal, and it is in the United Kingdom that she still lives and works.
In an interview with the Lusa agency, in 2020, when she showed “The Shift” at the Venice festival, Laura Carreira said that she wanted to continue exploring themes that, in her opinion, are little covered in cinema, related to poverty, work, loss of rights , precariousness, but always through fiction.
The 68th edition of the London Film Festival, which ends today, began on the 9th of this month.
In addition to “On Falling”, “Hanami”, by Denise Fernandes, had also been selected for the debut competition in feature films.
The festival’s program also included “Grand Tour”, by Miguel Gomes, and “Fogo do Vento”, by Marta Mateus.
These were also joined by “The nights still smell like gunpowder”, by Mozambican director Inadelso Cossa, which premiered at the Berlin Festival in February and reflects on the memory of the civil war in the country, and the short film “Our Lady Who Queima”, by visual artist and filmmaker Alice dos Reis, filmed in Serra da Gardunha, in Beira Baixa.
Source: rr.sapo.pt
