Arabian Nights vol. I – The Restless One

As 1001 Noites: O Inquieto

SECTION: Previews at Cinecittà 2015

SCREENINGS
Sunday, 04.10., 5.00 pm, Cinecittà

SYNOPSIS

In ARABIAN NIGHTS, the Portuguese director Miguel Gomes uses the structure of the famous ”One Thousand and One Nights“ legends as the framework for a moving chronicle of the economic crisis and its impact on the Portuguese. His tragic, funny and fantastic stories of daily life in Portugal document the development of
the country over a 12-month period. The film tells “stories about the poor and the rich, the powerful
and the unknown, children and elderly people, people and animals” says Miguel Gomes. His fabulous analysis of society whose range of styles goes from the modern to the archaic, the poetic to the journalistic, is almost like a contemporary version of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s experimental TRILOGY OF LIFE.
The frequent return of the same actors in different roles and stories gives ARABIAN NIGHTS a baroque and theatrical dimension, that unites cinema and life, reality and artefact in a homogenous dynamic and lends the film a poetic elegance. This dizzying mix of genres is accompanied by the profound sounds of enchanting music. ARABIAN NIGHTS is made of three parts, each of which has itsown tone. It premiered at Cannes in 2015.

MIGUEL GOMES

Born in Lisbon in 1972, Miguel Gomes studied at the Lisbon Film and Theatre School and worked as a film critic for the Portuguese press between 1996 and 2000. He directed several short films, which were awarded in many different festivals all over the world. THE FACE YOU DESERVE (2004) was his first feature film. In
2008, he presented his film OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2012 he won the Alfred Bauer Award at Berlin Film Festival with TABU.

FILMOGRAPHY
Meanwhile (1999), Christmas Inventory (2000), Kalkitos (2002), 31 (2003), Pre Evolution Soccer’s One-Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League (2004), The Face you deserve (2004), Cántico das criaturas (2006), Carnaval: à procura de Paulo Moleiro (2008), Our Beloved Month of August (2008), Tabu – Eine Geschichte von Liebe und Schuld (2012), Redemption (2013), Arabian Nights (2015)

WEBSITE
http://www.as1001noites.com/en/