The award-winning Portuguese Auterre João Pedro Rodriguez (Will au Wisp) develops his next feature, Afonso’s Smile, produced by Luca Guadagnino, a teenage boy who discovers sexuality amidst the tensions of the Portuguese revolution. The director will be presenting the film at the Venice Gap-Financing Market, which will run on Lido from August 29th to 31st.
“Afonso’s Smile” begins in the aftermath of Portugal’s April 1974 revolution. Afonso, 16, returns from Macau to live with Noemia, the mother of a Lisbon artist. As the capital begins to awaken from decades of dictatorship, Afonso is upset with his own emotional and sexual awakening.
Eventually, he is drawn into the secret gay community of Lisbon, where he tackles his identity and desires. His charm to the lover of British journalist Noemia is infused with fantasy events through a common passion for books, making increasingly dangerous choices as he sets Afonso on his course and tries to experience love and personal freedom for the first time.
“Afonso’s Smile” is a co-produced by Terratreme Films (Portuguese), Joli Rideau (Luxembourg), and Frenesy Film (Italy), and was produced by Juron Matos, Fabrizio Maltese and Guadagnino. It is based on the story of Miguel Fajardo set in Colombia, but was adapted by Rodriguez to explore “the Portuguese reality of the ’70s revolution,” the director told Variety.
It is based in part on his memory of starting in Macau, a Portuguese colony where Rodriguez lived as a child, and growing up there when the revolution took place. However, unlike previous works he described as “a more essayistic mix of documentary and fiction,” the story marks works from his first period, completely following fictional characters during that intense period in Portuguese history.
According to Rodriguez, the Macau setting is not attached to the story. Sleepy Island describes it as “a very small place that has nothing to do with the rest of the world.” “The revolution arrived later,” he said. “Everything arrived late, and there was no “real” revolution there. Everything changed politically, but in reality it didn’t change much. ”
“Afonso’s Smile” revolves around that “idea of delay,” saying it reflects the protagonist’s late awakening to sexuality and the political reality of the country’s LGBTQ community, born from nearly half a century of dictatorship.
“Homosexuality was legalized only in Portugal in 1982. The revolution was in 1974,” Rodriguez said. “There were conservative behavior. The way we think about sexuality openness in terms of sexuality and openness did not change.” Regarding the Portuguese LGBTQ community, “These rights were not conquered at the same time as freedom was conquered.”
Nevertheless, despite persecution by the authorities, the strange underground community flourishes in Lisbon, part of which is the story of that community, told from the perspective of a teenage protagonist “discovering the world” and animates “Afonso’s Smile.”
“It’s not said yet – it’s not said yet – there are still many stories about that period,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not really about (political) revolutions. It’s about the revolutions happening within him as a counterpoint to (political) revolutions. They somehow go in a different direction.”
The director said that “pervert by desire” has shaped most of his films, and that “Afonso’s Smile” once again returns to the theme of transformation, pointing out “the classic way of telling stories.”
“In my films, somehow the change is more fundamental. It’s more physical,” he said. “You go from reality to imagination to imagination. Perhaps that’s what I’m interested in. How can you fall into imagination? Films are so real, so I think it’s the ideal tool to make this shift a reality, but at the same time it doesn’t look real.”
