The film “Alma Viva”, by Portuguese-French director Cristèle Alves Meira, is a Portuguese candidate for a nomination for the North American Oscar film awards in 2023, the Portuguese Film Academy revealed on Monday.
This feature film was the most voted among the members of the academy to compete for an Oscar nomination for Best International Film in 2023.
“Alma Viva”, produced by Midas Filmes in co-production with France and Belgium, is the first feature film by Cristèle Alves Meira and premiered this year at the Critics’ Week, in parallel to the Cannes festival.
The film, a microcosm about family ties, emigration, mysticism and the culture of Trás-os-Montes, was shot entirely in Junqueira, in the municipality of Vimioso, where the director has maternal roots; and the filming, carried out last summer, mainly featured non-professional local actors.
“Alma Viva” focuses on Salomé, a girl, the daughter of Portuguese emigrants in France, who spends the summer in a village with her grandmother, with whom she has a strong emotional and spiritual bond.
Salomé will witness the death of her grandmother and suspects that she was poisoned by witchcraft by another woman from the town. As the family organizes her funeral, Salomé believes that he is accompanied by the spirit of her grandmother and tries to avenge her death.
“The story was completely inspired by powerful and mysterious stories I heard by the fireplace. These stories are almost like the archaic memory of Portugal, the matrix of our culture and I wanted to go back to these traditions and tell these stories in the cinema, to be in this transmission of culture”, explained Cristèle Alves Meira to the Lusa agency. on the eve of the world premiere. .
The film is also a portrait of Portuguese emigration, of the families that are separated between those who stay and those who leave, and the complex social and economic differences that derive from it.
Daughter of a Minho and a Trás-os-Montes who emigrated to France, Cristèle Alves Meira maintains a connection with Portugal and the origins of her parents and assumes that this film has an autobiographical bias, even if it is fiction.
In addition to “Alma Viva”, the members of the Portuguese Film Academy voted for four other films: “Lobo e Cão”, by Cláudia Varejão, “Mal Viver”, by João Canijo, “Restos do Vento”, by Tiago Guedes, and “Salgueiro Maia – O Implicado”, by Sérgio Graciano.
The 95th edition of the Oscars is scheduled for March 12 in Los Angeles, United States.
Source: Observadora
