Tabu

PORTUGAL / GERMANY / BRAZIL / FRANCE – 2012 – 110 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN PORTUGUESE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
A FILM BY MIGUEL GOMES

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Winner! Alfred Bauer Prize for a Work of Particular Innovation — Berlin Film Festival

A temperamental old woman, her Cape Verdean maid and a neighbour devoted to social causes live on the same floor of a Lisbon apartment building. When the old lady dies, the other two learn of an episode from her past: a tale of love and crime set in an Africa straight from the world of adventure films.

DIRECTOR
Miguel Gomes was born in Lisbon in 1972. He studied at the Lisbon Film and Theatre School and between 1996 and 2000 worked as film critic for the Portuguese press. He directed several short films awarded in festivals such as Oberhausen, Belfort and Vila do Conde, and screened at Locarno, Rotterdam, Buenos Aires and Vienna. THE FACE YOU DESERVE (2004) was his first feature film. In 2008, he presented his latest film, OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST in the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Festival, which was subsequently selected in more than forty international festivals where he won over a dozen prizes.The Viennale (Austria, 2008), Bafici (Argentina, 2009) and the Centro de Artes e Imaxes da Corunha (Spain, 2009) included retrospectives of his films.

"Miguel Gomes On TABU And The Pleasures And Phantoms Of Cinema"
- INDIEWIRE

3.5 out of 4! "the director has pulled off a delicate feat — with images and sound staying with you long after the cinema goes black."
- THE TORONTO STAR

4 Stars! "TABU's surrealism — like its romance, its comedy, its historicism, its everything — is retained with a light touch. For all its wistfulness, TABU never feels like a formalist, postmodern, post-cinema put-on. Gomes never feels like he's trying to pull anything off. And so, in turn, he manages to pull everything off. The smirk has softened into a gentle smile. Not even the crocodile grins."
- SLANT MAGAZINE

4 Stars! "Like a jewel summoned from the deep, Gomes’ film is scintillating and faceted, but like a blood diamond from Africa’s red soil, dark and disavowed."
- DOG AND WOLF

5 Stars! "Every scene is unexpected and magical"
- CONTACT MUSIC

"one of the delights of TIFF and I recommend it to filmgoers who want to see something truly different and memorable."
- CLASSICAL 96.3FM

10 out of 10! "a wildly ambitious movie whose reach is thankfully not exceeded by its grasp. Gomes holds our hearts in his hands, and while he doesn’t quite break them, he leaves us with a grateful, lingering ache."
- THE GRID

"one of the films of 2012"
- BLOGTO

Interview with director Miguel Gomes
- THE NATIONAL POST

Toronto-present writers’ TIFF selections of their favourite films of which TABU is one!
- CINEMA SCOPE

"...the gorgeous, swooningly romantic tale, filmed entirely in black and white, and partially without dialogue, is a tribute to classic silent cinema"
- INDIEWIRE

Video Interview with Miguel Gomes
- THE SEVENTH ART

"a stylistically bold love letter to the cinema and an all-around beautiful affair"
- TORONTOIST

3.5 Stars! "A movie for those who loved the film-studies classes they took in college."
- THE GLOBE AND MAIL

"Equal parts nostalgia, homage and French Colonial critique, Miguel Gomes' third feature-length film is as oblique and dreamlike as it is entrancing and haunting"
- EXCLAIM!

"a gorgeous piece of work and my favourite film at the festival so far"
- WAY TOO INDIE

"Grade A — not merely love or time lost, but memory itself."
- THE SCREENING ROOM

"TABU is a film to be remembered."
- TORONTO FILM SCENE

"TABU is a glorious celebration of cinema and crocodiles"
- TWITCH FILM

"From critic to director: Miguel Gomes’s journey"
- THE GLOBE AND MAIL

"TABU Is Magic Realism In Rapture, As Only The Language Of Cinema Can Tell It"
- INDIEWIRE

"...you needn't be a pedant to appreciate TABU's ecstatic cinephilia, only someone who responds to the desperate melancholy of "Be My Baby," whether by The Ronettes or a Portuguese boy band."
- FILM FREAK CENTRAL

"...one feature stands out as the figurehead of Wavelengths, it is TABU..."
- INDIEWIRE