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a close up of a man and woman lying in bed at night, softly litalr

The Vows
(A Promessa)

Screening on Film
Directed by António de Macedo.
With Guida Maria, Sinde Filipe, João Mota.
Portugal, 1972, 35mm, color, 97 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles.
Print source: Cinemateca Portuguesa

The best-known film by Cinema Novo leader António de Macedo brings the stark aesthetic and psychosexual intensity of Seventies European Westerns to its tale of repressed desire and violence in a remote fishing village. Centered on a fervently religious couple bound by an archaic vow of chasity, A Promessa crackles with tension when a stranger comes to town, a gypsy whose alternate traditions and understanding of intimacy threatens to upturn the entire village. 


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Copy preserved by Cinemateca Portuguesa - Museu do Cinema.

Image: courtesy Cinemateca Portuguesa - Museu do Cinema

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António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Novo

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The Vows
Directed by António de Macedo, 1972
Screening on Film
a close up of a man and woman lying in bed at night, softly lit

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Directed by António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro, 1976
a Vemeer-like view of a Portuguese woman with a white head scarf on looking out a window
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