Ubu, instigated by his wife, murders King Venceslau and usurps the throne of Poland. Intoxicated by power, this grotesque and coward character conducts his reign in an absurd and cruel way, leading his kingdom to ruin. A cinematographic adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s play, a political satire that, cyclically, turns to the reality of world politics.
In an ominous Lisbon courtyard where the last executioner of the kingdom once lived, an accident is waiting to happen. After a patient game of who's observing who, four characters will collide with dire consequences. Inspired by the novel The Damned Yard by Nobel Prize-winning Bosnian writer Ivo Andrić, this is a masterclass in slow cinema, a pure 16mm cinematic pleasure by André Gil Mata.
Director Júlio Bessa, who suffers from "stage fright" will make an introduction to his latest film at Festival de Cinema Luso Brasileiro in Santa Maria da Feira.
André Gil Mata was born in 1978. Having studied mathematics, he has worked mostly in photography, theatre and film and is one of the founders of the Portuguese photography and cinema laboratory Átomo 47. In 2009, his debut short-film WATER ARK won several awards having been shown in several international festivals, as well as his second short-film HOUSE. GRAVEDIGGER, his third short-film, won the Mèlies d'Argent and CAPTIVITY, his first feature-length documentary won the DocAlliance Award at Cannes, in 2013. Gil Mata obtained his master degree in film direction in 2012, at Lisbon Theatre and Film School and finished his PhD at Film. Factory (Sarajevo) in 2016.
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