Variações (film)

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Movie
Original title Variações
Country of production Portugal
original language Portuguese , Dutch , English
Publishing year 2019
length 109 minutes
Rod
Director João Maia
script João Maia,
Karen Sztajnberg
production Ana Figueira ,
Fernando Vendrell
camera André Szankowski
cut Pedro Ribeiro
occupation

Variações (international title: Variações: Guardian Angel ) is a film by the Portuguese director João Maia . The biography deals with the life of the Portuguese pop singer António Variações , who died of AIDS in 1984 .

content

The film shows the career of the singer, who came to the capital Lisbon from the northern Portuguese province with stops in London and Amsterdam, where he worked as a hairdresser, especially in the music and film world, and immersed himself in the local gay scene. He became known as a pop singer thereafter before dying at the age of only 39. His music, which caused a sensation as avant-garde pop music with influences from Portuguese folklore and fado , had a major impact on Portuguese pop music of the 1980s.

In bright colors, the film shows the contradicting life of António Variações, who lived a very conscious and healthy life as well as an intense life that led him between the connection to his traditional roots and Portuguese culture (literature, music, poetry) on the one hand and his cosmopolitan one , avant-garde and extroverted urge on the other hand. His idiosyncratic, eye-catching appearance was always considered his trademark.

production

The film was made after years of negotiations, production attempts and script drafts. The film was already announced for 2009, legal disputes and the like. a. between the director and the production companies caused further delays.

Variações was released in Portuguese cinemas on August 22, 2019 and was accompanied by a wide advertising campaign (billboards, TV clips). One of the various previews was on the popular NOS Alive! -Music Festival celebrated in July in the form of a live performance by the film band.

The detailed and largely faithful to the original equipment underlines the pop culture atmosphere of the late 1970s and early 1980s between resignation and departure, especially in Portugal between the liberating Carnation Revolution in 1974 and the far-reaching upheavals in the country on the way to joining the EU in 1986.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Recording of the Variações performance at NOS Alive! 2019, video clip on YouTube , accessed August 26, 2019.