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BERLINALE 2016 Portugal

Cartas da guerra sets its sights on the Golden Bear

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- Ivo Ferreira’s latest film adapts the letters that a young soldier sent to his wife during Portugal’s Colonial War

Cartas da guerra sets its sights on the Golden Bear
Letters from War’s lead actor, Miguel Nunes

Letters from War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile
]
by Portuguese director Ivo Ferreira will be competing for the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlinale (11-21 February). This is the first time a Portuguese production is being presented in competition since 2012, when Miguel Gomes seduced the audience with his multi-award-winning third feature, Tabu [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Miguel Gomes
interview: Miguel Gomes
film profile
]
. Letters from War and Tabu have other aspects in common besides their presence at the Berlinale: they were both shot in black and white, and share the same producer, Luís Urbano, from Lisbon-based outfit O Som e a Fúria.

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Ferreira, who had been based in Macau in recent years, returned to Portugal nearly two years ago to develop and shoot Letters from War, adapted from a book by Portuguese writer and psychiatrist António Lobo Antunes. Edgar Medina and Ferreira himself put their names to the screenplay adaptation.

As a young writer, Lobo Antunes headed to Africa to fight in the Colonial War. The film tells a story based on the letters he sent to his wife (which he eventually published), who had remained in Lisbon. Miguel Nunes and Margarida Vila-Nova play the young couple separated by war.

Principal photography started in Angola last spring and wrapped near Lisbon in the summer (read more). As yet, no official date has been announced for the film’s local theatrical release.

Ferreira will be competing against other renowned filmmakers, including Mia Hansen-Løve, André Téchiné, Lav Diaz (who won at Locarno 2014) and Thomas Vinterberg (read more).

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