Fire of Wind (Fogo do Vento)

The feature debut of Portuguese filmmaker Marta Mateus is a forceful collision of documentary reality and myth. In the Alentejo region of southern Portugal, where Mateus is from, a peasant community of grape-pickers become agents in an open-air ritual of remembrance and rebellion. It’s harvest time and there’s discontent in the fields. Suddenly, a black bull is on the loose, and the laborers must scramble for refuge high up in the oak trees. As the specter of the beast looms below, they share bread and wine, memories and dreams, the history of the landscape and of struggles past and present. Night begins to fall, and time swells. The wind that brings the heatwave, it burns. A fable-like film rich with language and monumental gesture, Fire of Wind announces a rare voice in contemporary cinema, an artist of deep political commitment steeped in the great filmmaking traditions of Portugal, all the…