Manoel De Oliveira © AFP
Press Conference: The Strange Case of Angelica
The press conference for the latest film by Manoel De Oliveira, O Estranho caso de Angélica (The Strange Case of Angelica), took place this afternoon. The director was accompanied by the actors RicardoTrepa, Pilar López de Ayala, Ana Maria Magalhaes, the director of photography Sabine Lancelin and the editor Valérie Loiseleux.
Chosen extracts.
Manoel de Oliveira on the subject of the film’s origins:
This film goes back a long way, I’ve been wanting to do it for sixty years! It was the French producer Léon Cakoff who persuaded me to go back to this project and I’m very happy about that.
The director on his vision of death:
Death is a condition. As soon as we are born there is just one thing we can be certain about: death. I’m not afraid of it. All I’m afraid of is pain, but I’m lucky because I haven’t yet been affected by that aspect of things.
Manoel de Oliveira about the references to the economic crisis in the film:
The economic crisis is very important. Look at Europe at the moment and in particular Spain and Portugal, it’s something terrible. (…) All of it is tied up with my thoughts even if I don’t want it to be. I think that we will manage to put these problems behind us but I believe nonetheless that there is a very serious loss of values involved.
Manuel De Oliveira on the technological developments in Hollywood cinema:
Before, American television made films always saying the same thing, and doing it faster and faster… Hollywood is starting to copy it.
