The Strange Case of Angelica
Since the heyday of Romanticism, gallant ghosts have haunted our imaginations. Sometimes troubling, sometimes amusing, they have crossed continents and eras, as well as film genres, as the films gathered here bear witness. Evanescent and elusive, these romantic ghosts are of course a source of fantasy, but they also inhabit cinema marvelously well, where they defy time, genre and mise-en-scène, between appearance and disappearance.
Isaac is a young photographer living in a boarding house in Régua. In the middle of the night, he receives an urgent call from a wealthy family to come and take the last photograph of their daughter, Angelica, who died just a few days after her wedding. Arriving at the house of mourning, Isaac gets his first glimpse of Angelica and is overwhelmed by her beauty. As soon as he looks at her through the lens of his camera, the young woman appears to come back to life just for him. Isaac instantly falls in love with her. From that moment on, Angelica will haunt him night and day, until exhaustion.
Manoel de Oliveira
Manoel de Oliveira was a Portuguese film director and screenwriter. He first began making films in 1927, when he and some friends attempted to make a film about World War I. In 1931, he completed his first film Douro, Faina Fluvial, a documentary about his home city Porto made in the city-symphony genre. He made his feature film debut in 1942 with Aniki-Bóbó and continued to make shorts and documentaries for the next 30 years. In 1971, Oliveira directed his second feature narrative film, Past and Present, a social satire that both set the standard for his film career afterwards and gained him recognition in the global film community. He continued making films of growing ambition throughout the 1970s and 1980s, gaining critical acclaim and numerous awards. Beginning in the late 1980s, he was one of the most prolific working film directors and made an average of one film per year past the age of 100. In March 2008, he was reported to be the oldest active film director in the world. Among his numerous awards were the Career Golden Lion from the 61st Venice International Film Festival, an Honorary Palme d’or for his lifetime achievements in 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and the French Legion of Honor.
