Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Films for 2014: #120. Manoel De Oliveira’s The Church of the Devil

Published on February 14, 2014

The Church of the Devil

Director: Manoel De Oliveira
Writers: Manoel De Oliveira, Machado De Assis (short stories)
Producers: O Som a a Furia’s Luis Urbano and Sandro Aguilar
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Fernanda Montenegro, Lima Duarte

Portuguese director Manoel De Oliveira is the world’s oldest living filmmaker, and the past several years has seen the filmmaker engaging in an incredible amount of output, his last title being 2012’s Gebo and the Shadow, which has yet to see a US release. While his past several titles have been set in Portugal or France, he moves to Brazil with this latest, based on short stories of Machado De Assis, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of Brazilian literature. Needless to say, a glance at the vague description provided has us hooked.

Gist: Three connected stories set in Brazil following a visit of devil to earth, a case of adultery and the delusions of an ornithologist.

Release Date: If it’s ready in time, Cannes. Otherwise look for another Venice and Toronto doubleplay.

[related]Top 200 Most Anticipated Films of 2014[/related]

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.