Among Azevedo Gomes’ most powerful works is this striking adaptation of a Robert Musil story, set in the 16th century, of a young bride taken from her native Portugal to the remote Northern Italian kingdom of her warrior husband, who abandons her for a full eleven years while he engages in endless battle. As the bride who must invent a new life in a distant, inhospitable land, Clara Riedenstein gives an evocative performance that reveals both tenderness and steely tenacity. Few filmmakers since Robert Bresson or Tsai Ming-liang have so aptly captured the physical, psychological and spiritual experience of profound waiting as Azevedo Gomes who, like them, calibrates a rigorous minimalism of setting and action to maximize the emotional weight of every decision and indecision. Fassbinder actress Ingrid Caven appears as a one-woman chorus delivering a sung commentary on the action and adding another theatrical level and richness to Azevedo Gomes’ restrained yet sumptuous film.

ORDER TICKETS - SEPT 1

ORDER TICKETS - OCT 1