Exclusive Trailer for the João César Monteiro Retrospective by Cinema Guild and MoMA Brings Back the Legacy of One of Portugal’s Finest Filmmakers.

      In the past five years or so, I don’t think I’ve come across a more remarkable filmmaker than João César Monteiro. I would characterize him as the nearest cinema has to Philip Roth or, as my friend Ian Barr puts it, “like Chaplin’s Tramp merged with Chaplin’s real-life sexual experiences.” Describing God’s Comedy, God’s Wedding, and Hovering Over the Water as some of the greatest films only scratches the surface of his body of work. Watching his films on MKV files of varying quality has been enlightening, maddening, and inspiring—feelings that will undoubtedly be amplified with the new restorations by the Cinemateca Portuguesa, which will soon be available in the U.S. through Cinema Guild. We are excited to exclusively share a trailer for the distributor’s retrospective, which begins at MoMA this Friday and looks forward to wider releases.

      Cinema Guild summarizes Monteiro’s work and legacy as follows: “João César Monteiro (1939-2003) emerged from the radical environment of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution of 1974, part of a vibrant generation of filmmakers who paved new cinematic paths as the country moved away from decades of fascist rule. To this day, he is regarded as one of the most provocative and influential figures in Portuguese cinema. A blend of dandy and pauper, hedonist and monk, revolutionary and classicist, realist and romantic, Monteiro embodied profound contradictions. His work merges a perverse, slow-burn burlesque with the formal sensibility of a high modernist and the lyrical feeling of a poet. By drawing from both the highbrow and the lowbrow, he blended avant-garde elements with popular spectacle, launching a fierce, carnivalesque rebellion against the established order.”

      You can find the preview and poster below: