are Jorge , the new film by Portuguese director Marco Martins , was chosen to join the official selection at the Venice International Film Festival which will take place between August 31 and September 10. The film, which will compete in the Orizzonti section, will be the only Portuguese to join the festival.
St George marks the return of Marco Martins to Venice, where they participated since 2006, time when his short film a Year Longest , written in partnership with the famous Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra, was selected for the event. The Observer, Marcus admitted he was “very happy” with the selection, lamenting that his film is the only Portuguese to join the festival, now in its 73rd edition.
“It’s a long process of selection of films and then the list will reduce and the expectation is growing. I am very happy. I think it’s very different from a movie premiere in Venice or Cannes or debut in any festival. represents the possibility of the film have an international career. Gives more visibility . “
St George also marks the return of the Portuguese director on feature films. The last, How Draw a Perfect Circle , premiered in 2009, five years ago. Since then, Marco Martins made a documentary, a short film and was involved in several theater projects. “They are five years”, said jokingly, explaining that the delay was due to the long process of making the film.
“It was a very difficult film to make,” he said. “There was a year in which the Portuguese Cinema Institute was closed and there were no contests. The entire financing process was quite complicated. it is a film that had a very long writing made based on a survey along the difficult collection agencies. But of course, like to shoot less in less time! “
St George is a look at the intervening years the troika in Portugal and on the crisis financial that hit the country. In the center of the plot is a boxer, Jorge, long unemployed, who takes a job in a difficult collection company to pay its debts. Crossing fiction with documentary, Marco Martins using professional actors, but also to retail because “certain characters could not be done by professionals.” Real people with their way of speaking, with its own gestures, could not be replaced by actors. It would not be the same.
would not work, “he admitted. “[During the research phase,] I got to know people who really wanted in the film. I thought if I did, would make a weaker film, less strong. I was collecting these characters and bringing them to the film. “
Nuno Lopes, a reunion long awaited
To are Jorge , Marco Martins returned to join with Nuno Lopes , actor who worked on the film Alice , 2005. This, the first feature film the Portuguese director, received international recognition and was awarded with the Regards Jeunes at the Cannes Film Festival that year. The film also won the Golden Globe for “Best Film” and Nuno Lopes the “Best Actor”.
Observer, Marco Martins explained that the two never stopped working, continuing to work in the theater. “We have five pieces together in the middle of this whole process and spoke always in the will to work together. But I lacked the right story. “The will was so great (as well as the postponement) that, at one point, Nuno Lopes decided it was time the two sit down and think a movie together.
” And where it started this idea, “said Marco. “In fact, it began with a film about a boxeur Portuguese amateur. But then we started to search for and we realized that there were many people [boxers] who worked in difficult collection agencies . “
The cast of are Jorge also has the participation of actors like Beatriz Batarda (which also entered Alice ), Gonçalo Waddington and Carla Maciel, among others.
a story about contemporary Portugal
When Marco Martins and Nuno Lopes decided to make a movie about a boxer, the director immediately thought I wanted to do something “different” . “There are so many boxing movies, it is difficult to make one that is different,” he said. “This was an essential step for writing the script”, a project made six hands, with the collaboration of Mariana Fonseca (who did all the research) and Ricardo Adolfo (co-author of the script), friend and writer who Marco has long dreamed collaborate.
“the films are made by people, and I think finding the right creative team is key. always we are doing this research. I’m always to do with who I can work on the next film. And he had a very strong desire to work with Ricardo. “
Marco found this thing “different” in contemporary Portugal. “When I finished my second film, How Draw a Perfect Circle , I thought I wanted to make a film about contemporary Portugal. Over here and now, one thing to talk about what was going on. This universe was completely away from everything we saw, everything we read, “he said.
I think the cinema, a very fast society, very fast news has a key role -. the registration of a time, a place, a social state “
Using the years of the troika as a backdrop, the director managed to bring a different perspective and more current to the story of a boxer who is faced with the same problems as many other Portuguese. “It was a period of great social unrest, when people began to think about what is the welfare state, the minimum wage, social income. I thought it was a perfect mirror of these people who have debts, which use loans to pay these debts. It seemed very interesting. Never had a more social film about today. “
Like many Portuguese, Jorge is also a fighter in the ring and outside it. Hence the name, are Jorge . “As it was a boxeur , a warrior, [me and Nuno Lopes] thought he should have a worship at St. George and always prayed to the saint before the fighting. I thought it was a pretty picture. A beautiful title . “
Updated at 13h38 with the statements of the director Marco Martins
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