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
Elvira Beraza, Jesús López
Spain/Portugal
2022
In Spanish and Portuguese with English subtitles
Featured in:
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.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Memory of Princess Mumbi
In 2093, a filmmaker arrives in the African village of Umata, where he meets Princess Mumbi, a woman torn between love, legacy, and the future of storytelling. It's a fabulous genre-blending fable about memory, invention and cinematic resistance.
Late Fame
Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World
Sasha Waters' documentary takes us through the life of America's best-selling late twentieth century poet, a private woman who shared her innermost thoughts and made them indispensable.
Rosetta
A teenager tries to change her dire circumstances in this overwhelming naturalistic drama from the Dardenne brothers, winner of the Palme d'Or and Best Actress awards at Cannes, 1999.
Searching for Satyrus
Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Rena Effendi embarks on a quest to track down the very rare Satyrus Effendi, a butterfly discovered by her father in the mountains of Aberbaijain. But what she finds is altogether more personal, and more upsetting.
The Blair Witch Project
The rushes of a student-made documentary investigating the legend of the Blair Witch in Burkittsville, Maryland, a quest that led the three filmmakers deep into the Appallachian woods. Easy to get lost in there...
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
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.
