Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. 1969. Portugal. Directed by João César Monteiro. 4K digital restoration by Cinemateca Portuguesa. In Portuguese; English subtitles. 19 min.
Fragmentos de um Filme-Esmola: A Sagrada Família (Fragments of an Alms-Film). 1972. Portugal. Directed by João César Monteiro. Screenplay by Monteiro from texts by Aeschylus, James Joyce, Francis Ponge, André Breton. With Manuela de Freitas, João Perry, Luis Miguel Cintra, Monteiro. 35mm. In Portuguese; English subtitles. 75 min.
In Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, his inaugural work, Monteiro films the renowned Portuguese poet at work, with her family, at sea, and at home, creating a tender, delicate portrait that, in his own words, “represents above all the proof to those who want to understand and accept it, that poetry can’t be filmed…and this uncompromising shame makes it, I believe, poetic, in spite of it.” In the more provocative and experimental Fragments of an Alms-Film, the director takes aim at his country’s traditional morals and complacent, bourgeois family structures, famously flipping the bird at the audience in its first minute, as if denouncing their tolerance of a fascist regime that demands silent acceptance of its moral decrepitude.