Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: 51. Maureen Fazendeiro’s The Seasons

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We look forward to charting the future filmography of Maureen Fazendeiro – the French filmmaker based in Lisbon who recently gave us The Tsugua Diaries – the Director’s Fortnight selected film directed alongside Miguel Gomes. Her latest project (and solo debut) project blurs the lines between fic and docu. The Seasons is produced by Norte Productions’ Valentina Novati and O Som e a Fúria’s Luís Urbano. A FIDLab project in Marseille, this digs back into the history books.

Gist: The film travels at the pace of the seasons through the real and fictional story of a region in Portugal, the Alentejo, and the peoples who have lived there. It begins at a present with no memory and travels back in time to the immemorial time, before the invention of writing. Along the way, it crosses more or less distant pasts: the work and life of German archaeologists detained far away from home during WWII, through their archives and letters; the occupation of the land by the rural workers after the revolution in April 1974; stories kept in the collective memory. During this journey we meet women and men, old people and children, shepherds, hunters, beekeepers, archaeologist, teachers and storytellers, and also ruins, dolmens and a thousand-year old olive tree. All contribute, with their memories, believes and knowledge, to compose a poetic, political, multi-layered and polyphonic portrait of the region. M

Release Date/Prediction: This is a good question. This could be several “seasons” away from a world premiere or might be ready and flying under the radar. A return to the Directors’ Fortnight might be likely.