the Royan Community Film Festival Which is in full swing this week, this year, compared to the previous year, opened its programming of favorite shows located in the context of “author’s cinema”.
A particularly good example Alma Viva by Christel Alves Mera, the first film shown in competition last Wednesday and also shown at the Critics’ Week in Cannes last May:
Salome spends her holidays, like every summer, at her grandmother’s family home. Here, in the middle of the Portuguese mountains, life seems unchanging, quarrels between neighbors go on from year to year, and tongues are still hung.
A silent observer, the girl spins around in the middle of this little world without much noticing. Until the sudden death of her grandmother, which upsets the family balance.
Theater director, then director of documentaries and short films. Christel Alves Mera signs her first feature film, a fascinating and profound film that took her back to her country of origin, Portugal.
The story of an impossible blacksmith, anchored in a village nestled deep in the mountains, where we see a young girl (played wonderfully by the promising Lua Mish, daughter of the first director), a little witch who appears to be inhabited by the spirit of her recently deceased grandmother.
Salome is presented as ” open the body Welcoming the spirits and the hidden powers and is the engine for that Simple and bitter story.
Kristel Alves Mira unfolds an introductory story Interesting and which reveals, at least at first glance, an applicationTo some extent a natural rocker, but gradually allows itself some incursions into the imagination.
about a screenplay that casually explores questions of transition and emancipation, Alma viva, which certainly isn’t entirely done, as the film sometimes lacks a bit of challenge and pacing, and yet manages at its best moments to combine the frivolous and the spiritual in one and the same momentum, making it all the more interesting.
Alma Viva is a French, Portuguese and Belgian film by Christel Alves Mira. with loa michelAnd Anna PadraoAnd Jacqueline Corrado (1 hour 28)
Director Christel Alves Mira During the movie screening in Royan on November 30, 2022
