SCHED: SF International Film Fest '08

Links: Event Details/ Who's going | Original Source
About: This uniquely Portuguese song genre of longing, sadness and nostalgia, whose roots have been traced to the early 19th century, is enjoying a fast-spreading new vogue. Like the blues, fado, with its strumming guitars and plucking mandolins, can be lively or poignant as it contemplates unrequited love, homesickness and the general malaise of being down on your luck. As with his other musical films like Sevillanas (SFIFF 1993), Iberia (SFIFF 2006), Flamenco and Tango, Carlos Saura brings together a range of the finest practitioners of the art, including Mariza, Camane, Carlos do Carmo and Chico Buarque. But adding artists from Mozambique, Brazil, Cabo Verde (including a hip-hop interlude) takes us into unpredictable side streets, leavening the traditional with the talents of Lila Downs, Caetano Veloso and Cesaria Evora. Saura has a genius for using the camera to bring new dimensions to sound, motion, color and feeling with his ever-inventive staging of performances, inflected by costuming, backgrounds, projections and disarming closeups. The spirit of the port city of Lisbon, the place that gave birth to fado, is evoked with location shooting, vintage footage and other graphic imagery, elements new to the Saura musical film canon. "I hope that this film will serve to launch fados into the world," says Saura, who celebrates 50 years of making films with one of his most polished, inspired and satisfying efforts. Whether you know fado or any of the artists here or not, after this stirring musical journey, you are not likely to forget them.-Miguel Pendas West Coast Premiere. Sponsored by KQED and Ctwo Hotels.
Also playing on: Sat 4/26, 2:45 pm | Mon 4/28, 1:30 pm
Tags: world cinema