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Ponto Final film image, director Miguel López Beraza

Ponto Final

World Premiere

The director returns to his parents’ home and talks them into playing roles in a film he is making, addressing delicate personal and familial subjects in the process. This is an extremely engaging and reflective documentary that explores family relations in a low-key, often humorous way that offsets the seriousness of some of the subjects. The film is also a visual treat, taking us on a tour around his parents’ house and community in Lisbon, while it plays with images of youth, age, and the relationship between memory, film, and time. From discussions about mortality to imitating Marcello Mastroianni, Ponto Final strikes a beautiful balance between the family’s personal lives and their distractions for the camera.

 

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Elvira Beraza, Jesús López

Credits
Country of Origin

Spain/Portugal

Year

2022

Language

In Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
23 min

Featured in:

Ponto Final film image, director Miguel López Beraza

International Shorts: Personal Journeys

The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.

 

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Credits

Producer

Mireia Graell Vivancos

Screenwriter

Miguel López Beraza, Mireia Graell Vivancos

Cinematography

Alberto González Casal

Editor

Pedro Collantes

Production Design

Patricia Huguet

Original Music

Laura Casaponsa

Director

Miguel López Beraza headshot, Ponto Final director

Chad Charlie

Madrid-based filmmaker Miguel López Beraza combines architecture with filmmaking. He was awarded a scholarship to take part in the DoCNomads Master’s Degree in Documentary Filmmaking and, afterwards, another one to attend the advanced screenwriting workshop at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV) in Cuba. His first film, Walls (2014), received the 2015 Goya Award in Spain for Best Documentary Short. His next work, With All Our Cameras (2016), premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival and won the Grand Prix at T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival’s European Short Film Competition.