Take a summer holiday with this strange and wonderful film. A playful weave of documentary, love story and popular song, set at an annual music festival in the mountains of Arganil, Portugal.
This Portuguese film is the revelation of the year... an idiosyncratic, very funny and moving blend of documentary, fiction and popular music.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2009
Our Beloved Month of August 2008
Aquele querido mês de agosto
Surrender to this strange and wonderful film's playful weaving between documentary and drama and its rousing soundtrack and you may feel the benefits of a summer holiday in the mountains of Arganil, Portugal. Director Miguel Gomes becomes acquainted with some of the local legends before introducing some legends of his own in a storyline about a trio of musicians who appear to be living the kind of forbidden, thwarted love lives they sing about with such gratifying fervour. — BG
“A tantalizing mix of documentary, fiction and everything in between (including music video), Miguel Gomes' 150-minute love song to rural Portugal, scores viscerally as well as intellectually. Gorgeously photographed performances by semi-pro Portuguese dance-music bands at the summer Pardieiros festival set one's eyes ablaze and toes tapping, but Gomes goes further to work the brain as a narrative slowly, sneakily emerges out of the vérité melody-making.” —Rob Nelson, Variety