PORTUGAL, FRANCE, ITALY

LÉGUA

2023 – DCP – color – 119’

Direction: Filipa Reis, João Miller Guerra

Screenplay: João Miller Guerra, Filipa Reis, Sara Morais, José Filipe Costa, Letícia Simões

Cinematography: Vasco Viana

Editing: Luísa Homem

Set design: Marco Ascanio Viarigi

Original music: Ricardo Jacinto, Hypogeo Colorista Alessandro Pelliccia

Costumes: Susana Abreu

Cast: Carla Maciel (Ana), Fátima Soares (Emília), Vitória Nogueira da Silva (Mónica), Sara Machado (Sofia), Paulo Calatré (Victor), Manuel Mozos (Guilherme)

Producers: Rachel Daisy Ellis, Filipa Reis in coproduzione con in coproduction with Catarina Mourão, Alexandre Gavras, Jon Coplon

Production: Uma Pedra no Sapato (Pt) in coproduzione con in coproduction with Laranja Azul (Pt), KG Productions (Fr), Stayblack Productions (It)

World Sales: Luxbox

synopsis

At an old manor house in northern Portugal, Ana helps her friend, Emília, the elderly housekeeper who is determined to continue to keep the unoccupied house in order for the owners who are never there. As the seasons turn, Mónica, Ana’s daughter, challenges her mother’s choices and the three generations of women search to understand where they belong in a world that is rapidly fading, where the cycle of life is renovated only through inevitable endings.

the directors: Filipa Reis, João Miller Guerra

Filipa Reis (1977, Lisbon) has been a film director and producer since 2000. With a postgraduate degree in Cinema and Television, in 2008 Filipa founded the production company Uma Pedra no Sapato. Filipa codirected several documentaries with João Miller Guerra, that were selected and awarded at international film festivals including IDFA, Cinéma du Réel, DOK Leipzig and BAFICI. Djon África, her debut fiction feature, also codirected with João, premiered at Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition (2018). Légua is her second feature.

João Miller Guerra (1974, Lisbon) is a director, editor and visual artist with a Design major and post graduate course in Painting. He codirected several documentaries with Filipa Reis, that were selected and awarded at international film festivals including IDFA, Cinéma du Réel, DOK Leipzig and BAFICI. Djon África, his debut fiction feature premiered at Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition (2018). Légua is his second feature.

director’s statement

“We portray empowered women. Emília decides to die in the only house she feels is her home. Ana decides to stay in the land where she was born, giving up emigrating with her husband. Mónica is claiming her independence, while exploring her sexuality. I like to think about intimacy and the erotic. How our body can learn to feel, with each other people but also in interaction with other physical materials. We wanted to explore this in Ana’s character. Her connection to the soil through her work and also her sensorial communion with nature’s elements, the sun, the wind, the water: all senses open to the physicality and materiality of things. We explored as well the nuances of the power relations between them. And the enormous friendship that unites them.” (Filipa Reis)

filmography

2010 Li Ké Terra (short doc)

2011 Nada Fazi (short)

2011 Orquestra Geração (short doc)

2012 Bela Vista (short doc)

2012 Cama de Gato (Cat’s Craddle, short doc)

2014 O Indispensável Treino da Vagueza (The Indispensable Practice of Vagueness, short doc)

2014 Fragmentos de uma observação participativa (Fragments of a Participant Observation, short doc)

2015 Fora da Vida (short doc) 

2018 Djon África

2023 Légua

awards and festivals

2023 Cannes FF – Quinzaine des Cinéastes