video by Frank Stender for Europanet - Invideo

Shooting Stars at EFP

Portugal is sending Leonor Baldaque, the star of four recent films by veteran Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira: O principio de incerteza, Je retourne à la maison, Porto da Minha Infância and Inquietude) and, more recently, in Alixis Mital Toldeo’s Eloge de l’Ombre.

"There are many European directors I would like to work with... of course in Portugal there are directors like Pedro Costa and again Oliveira with whom I like to work. It was always a challenge, every film I made with him.
But at the same time I always remember everything I know, because he really taught me my métier: the way I work, how to work, how to look at the camera and how to face a character, not trying to understand the psychology of the character, but just giving yourself to it, just physics and the physical position. By doing so the psychology was always appearing. It is a method that I tried to apply.
If I try to lose myself in psychological consideration about the character, it is more probable for me to fail".