(1942, Portugal, 72')
Set against the streets of Porto, the story of Carlito and Eduardinho – rivals in love for Teresinha – elevates childhood dynamics into a universal parable of good and evil, friendship and ingratitude. From his very first film, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira revealed a rare ability to transform the smallest gestures into moral reflection, weaving poetry into the everyday within this realistic fable.
Over the course of a vast filmography, Oliveira became the foremost interpreter of Portuguese cinema and one of Europe’s most original voices. A key presence in Venice since 1976, when the Festival consecrated him internationally with a retrospective, he went on to win the Golden Lion twice, in 1985 and 2004, and continued returning to the Lido until 2012 with Gebo and the Shadow, at the age of 104.