- Portugal
THE TSUGUA DIARIES
Synopsis
A country house in Portugal in the summer of 2020. Three people (Carloto Cotta, Crista Alfaiate, João Nunes Monteiro) spend the days of lockdown doing whatever comes up: they build a butterfly house in the garden, clean, dance at night to music from the kitchen radio, sleep, eat, bicker in passing. The film records each day, dated – only in reverse, from the last day to the first. And the further back it goes, the more it becomes clear that there is more beyond the frame: a film crew, rules, a shoot thrown off course by a breach of the hygiene protocol. “The Tsugua Diaries” by Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes, Portugal 2021, is diary and making-of at once, both invented and both true.
Shot on 16mm, with sun, dust and plenty of green, the film is one of the lightest responses to the lockdown year: playful, self-ironic, without complaint. The reversal of the title (“Tsugua” is “August” backwards) gives away the method. It premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2021; it later screened at the New York Film Festival. “The Tsugua Diaries” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2021.
Festival
Shown at the 2021 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
