05/07/2006

In the mid 1990s, Portuguese director Joaquim Leitão made two of the most successful local titles to date, Adão e Eva and Tentação. Then, in 1999, still backed by his regular producer Tino Navarro, Leitão began a film trilogy about the Colonial War.

With a darker tone and a smaller promotional campaign, Hell achieved less extraordinary box office results than his two previous features but that did not dissuade Leitão from pursuing the project. Now, after seven years, he finally started shooting the trilogy's second part, 20,13 – Purgatório (lit. "20.13 – Purgatory").

From a script written by Leitão with Luís Lopes and Navarro, 20,13 – Purgatório has been announced as a cross between "the violence of war and the violence of passions", set in Portuguese military facilities in northern Mozambique in 1969. What was meant to be a peaceful Christmas Eve ends up badly as a group of soldiers brings back a prisoner who will be murdered. At the same time, the captain’s wife makes a surprise visit, bringing along a priest who is supposed to celebrate the mass.

Supported by the ICAM, the film has a €1.3m budget, smaller than Hell’s. According to co-screenwriter and producer Navarro, shooting in Mozambique would be "logistically complicated". Consequently, principal photography will take place through August 12 in the Shooting Field of Alcochete, near Lisbon, a spot that belongs to the Portuguese Army.

Starring Adriano Carvalho, Marco d'Almeida, Nuno Lopes, Carla Chambel, Maya Booth, Ivo Canelas and Júlio César, 20,13 – Purgatório is set to premiere simultaneously in Portugal (30 screens) and Mozambique on December 7, said Antunes João of distribution company Lusomundo. Negotiations are underway with Angola and Brazil, following a strategy of promoting the film first of all in Lusophone countries.

"Contrary to US films, which have already 'exhausted' the Vietnam theme, we have hardly produced films about the Colonial War", said Navarro. 20,13 – Purgatório arrives two years after Margarida Cardoso's acclaimed The Murmuring Coast, which offered a female perspective of the war.