Paulo Branco Movies

Camille de Casabianca writes, directs, and stars in this romantic comedy about social class and judo. After she is dumped by her husband, Valerie (de Casabianca) looks for solace in judo. Instead, she finds hunky martial arts instructor Bruno. Though she is a well-to-do architect and he is strictly blue collar, the two inevitably fall in love. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

A handful of strangers hoping to find freedom discover it is no easy quarry in this metaphoric drama. Four people stand near the shore of a seaside community and board a small boat hoping to sail away; they are soon attacked by border guards, and one of them does not survive. The three remaining sailors -- two men (Axel Neuman and Valentinas Masalskis) and a woman (Fatima Ennafloui) -- wash up on the beach of an island strewn with rocks. None of them speak the same language, and they struggle to make their way on the unforgiving coastline, often at odds with each other. They find they are not alone on the island -- an Arab settlement and a cadre of soldiers are already living there; the military men attack them, and the Arabs refuse to come to their aid. Freedom was shown in competition at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Agusti Villaronga directs this intensely morbid love story about fascist executions, disease, bloody animal abuse, and violent homoeroticism. Set in a small village on the island of Mallorica during the Spanish civil war, four children witness the execution of leftists at the hands of pro-Franco villagers. In a desperate act of revenge, one of the children kills the son of the lead executioner. Ten years later, the three survivors of the incident find themselves recuperating in a sanitarium. Fragile Manuel (Bruno Bergonzini), who suffers from TB, has fervently embraced Christianity, while violent Andreu (Roger Casamajor), who also suffers from the disease, boasts about his womanizing exploits while secretly longing for Morell (Juli Mira), an elderly male black marketeer. The third survivor is Francisca (Antonia Torrens) who, after losing her virginity to Andreu, became a nun working as a nurse at the institute. As the two young men's sickness deepens, they grow increasingly tormented. Manuel violently reacts to his attraction to Andreu by growing even more fanatically religious, while Andreu's sexual frustration results in him brutally killing a cat. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Two weeks before her wedding, Maria Joao (Beatriz Batarda) is spoiled, hung over, possibly pregnant, and unwilling to exchange her party girl ways for her impending marriage. So, with the objections of her father (Luis Miguel Cintra) and the encouragement of her idiosyncratic Uncle Nini (Francisco Rabal), she leaves her family's estate, on a mission to return a large boat and trailer to her fiancé, who lives in Spain. With the help of Gabriel (Marcello Urgeghe), her father's godson, she drives a large rig across the Iberian plains, visiting her estranged brother Ze Maria (Ricardo Aibeo) in Cordoba along the way and dallying in sexual hijinks to boot. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Raul Ruiz's Love Torn in a Dream is introduced with a fake newsreel, taking place in postwar France, in which the cast of the film meet with the producer, who explains the film's complex weave of nine narratives. A diagram in which each story is represented by a letter of the alphabet explicates the intertwining of the nine tales. As the producer explains each actor's role, the film begins. The stories, rooted in folklore, bump up against each other as the film leaps back in forth in time. They involve a jewel stolen from a painting, a mirror that "steals" what it reflects, a seminary student who dresses as a priest to hear the nuns' confessions, brothers who combat each other in their search for a group of rings, a man whose everyday life is predicted by a website 24 hours in advance, a Catholic who finds out he's really Jewish, and a treasure map that leads to a pirate's chest. Each of the main cast members plays multiple roles. Ruiz veterans Melvil Poupaud and Elsa Zylberstein play the lead roles, while Lambert Wilson, Christian Vadim, Diogo Dória, José Meireles, and Rogério Samora play supporting roles. The film won the FIPRESCI Award at the 2000 Montreal World Film Festival, and was shown as part of the "Film Comment Selects" series at New York's Lincoln Center in 2003. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

An ambitious project of Chile-born, Paris-based Raul Ruiz, this psychological drama brings to the screen the famous classic of Marcel Proust with fidelity to its interior monologues and streams of consciousness. Proust (Marcelo Mazzarella), on his deathbed in his small apartment on Rue Hamelin, is looking through old photos and remembering his life, as real characters intermingle with fictional ones from his novels. The period is 1914-18, when WWI is raging. Hidden in Paris, thanks to his asthma, Marcel Proust wanders into the night. He finds an aging courtesan in Café de la Paix, which is deserted by the curfew. Charlus, the seducer of young boys, is at the Palais des Felicites where he meets his lovers. Gilberte returns alone to Tansonville to evade the confiscation of her chateau by the Germans after the death of her husband at the front. Famous violinist Morel is hiding in a decrepit hotel. The demoralizing effects of war affect all the characters, hastening their decadence or transforming them into caricatures. In the whirlpool of the grotesque specter of war, Marcel finds refuge in his childhood memories to escape the atrocities around him. Death and decadence, the evanescence of human existence, and the relations between space and time are some of the main themes explored in this film, which reflects the works of Marcel Proust in every detail. Raul Ruiz has on his side a very good screenwriter, Gilles Taurand, and an impressive cast: Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich, who have collaborated with Ruiz before, Emanuelle Béart, Vincent Pérez, Pascal Greggory, and the Italian man of theatre, Marcello Mazzarella. Shown in competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

La Nouvelle Eve is a bittersweet comedy about an independent woman, thirty-ish and single, and her unexpected need for the affections of a forty-ish balding family man with no interest in acquiring a mistress. Camille (Karin Viard) works as a lifeguard at an indoor swimming pool in Paris. The idea of domesticity bores her to tears; she would rather see herself having kinky sex in elevators or restrooms than carrying a baby in her arms. But something has been missing in her life, and she's absent-minded and irritable. When she trips on the street and falls, Alexis (Pierre-Loup Rajot) offers her his handkerchief. Camille is self-destructive in her obsession to possess Alexis. But Alexis is not totally indifferent, either. Acting is quite remarkable, particularly the performance of Karin Viard as a modern woman who is completely confused with her old-fashioned emotions. The film pokes fun at the bourgeois family life as well as the singles scene. La Nouvelle Eve, which was produced by Paolo Bronco, was screened as part of the Panorama section of the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

Cedric Kahn directed this erotic French drama about sexual obsession. Separated from his wife, Martin (Charles Berling) is intrigued when he sees an elderly painter with plump teen Cecilia (Sophie Guillemin). When he later learns that the man has died, Martin meets Cecilia, and asks her intimate questions about her relationship with the painter. Martin begins a passionate affair with the detached Cecilia, who offers only monosyllabic responses to his detailed probing questions. When Martin learns Cecilia is seeing a man much younger than himself, his full-bloomed fixation pushes him over an emotional precipice, and he begins following her everywhere. Shown at the 1998 Montreal Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

The eccentric Portuguese director Joao Cesar Monteiro is also the screenwriter and the main character of this film, which continues his cynical observations about God and religion. Two shadow-like figures meet in an old, icy park when all seems lost. They are Deus and a Messenger from God. The Messenger gives the Crook (which is the temporary state of poor Joao de Deus) a suitcase full of money. Having accomplished his mission, he disappears. While Joao is busy counting his fortune, a heavy object plunges into the nearby lake, disturbing its tranquility. Joao goes to see what is happening and sees a young girl drowning. He plunges into the water to save her and carries the unconscious girl off to a convent. When he returns to the park, the suitcase full of money is still there waiting for him. Providence or sheer luck? With Monteiro, the answer is evident. 52nd Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain regard, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

Alain Tanner (In the White City) directed this Swiss-French-Portuguese drama, based on the novel by Antonio Tabucci. Amid August heat in Lisbon, French author Paul (Francis Frappat) meets various people from his past who surface from his memories into reality. Poet Pierre (Andre Marcon) takes him to a restaurant, and Paul's father (Alexandre Zloto) wants to know how he died. When Paul visits a private club, the headwaiter (Jose Manuel Mendes) bets a bottle of 1952 wine on a billiard shot. Both novel and film serve as tributes to Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, who appears here as a character. Shown in the Directors Fortnight section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A trio of stand-up comics discover that success is no laughing matter in this comedy-drama. Danny, the manager of a night club in London, makes it his business to find the best and brightest "cutting edge" comedy talent, and thinks that he's found a real prize in Alex (Suki Webster), an attractive woman with a background in improvisational theater who has a keen gift for humor. Alex is encouraged to take a look at Jay and Gus (Neil Mullarkey and David Schneider), a pair of performers who've been doing a "twin" act for some time. Alex's style bounces off Jay and Gus' material perfectly, and soon the threesome are rising stars on the British comedy circuit. But their offstage lives are hardly as harmonious as their club act. Both Jay and Gus are infatuated with Alex, and she's already involved with an artist -- and Gus is having a fling with a model. Meanwhile, romantic frustrations and dueling egos lead the three into infighting and drugs, threatening to derail their success almost as quickly as they began to pick up steam. Comic Act was directed by Jack Hazan, best known for his semi-documentary look at The Clash, Rude Boy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide