“The Memory of the Smell of Things” is the Portuguese Oscar candidate

“ A Academia Portuguesa de Cinema congratulates António Ferreira, the producer, the entire artistic and technical team and the other professionals involved in the realization of ‘The Memory of the Smell of Things’, wishing them the greatest success in this new stage of the film’, can be read in the academy statement.

The film was on vote in recent weeks, among the members of the academy, along with “18 Holes for Paradise”, by João Nuno Pinto, “Maria Vitória”, by Mário Patrocínio, “First Person of the Plural”, by Sandro Aguilar, “Global Project”, by Ivo M. Ferreira, and “Terra Vil”, by Luís Campos.

António Ferreira's film is a fictional narrative that talks about racism, aging and war traumas.

The story focuses on Armenians who, on the verge of turning 80, live in a home, contrary to being treated like other elderly users and unable to accept support from a black Portuguese assistant.

It is in Herminia, the black woman, that Armenian discharges prejudice and racism, while reliving, in nightmares, the time she fought in the Colonial War in Africa.

To Lusa, before the premiere, António Ferreira said he wanted to make a film about aging, this irreversible moment of the end of life and at the same time talk about what still remains in Portuguese society decades after the end of the war in the colonized territories.

The Portuguese military “had been brainwashed to see the black as an enemy. When the war is over, the country has a revolution and no one has explained anything to these men what was in their head, no one has ever dismantled these ideas and prejudices that last for decades ", lamented António Ferreira.

The director, born in 1970, did research with former combatants, psychologists and was inspired by his personal experience, as the son of a man who was left with war marks.

“The Memory of the Smell of Things” is starring José Martins in the role of Armenian, who tries to pacify himself with the past and aging while facing Herminia, a role played by Mina Andala.

The film won José Martins the award for best actor at the Shanghai Film Festival in China, and António Ferreira the best argument, co-written with Tiago Cravidão, at the Tangier film festival in Morocco.

Coproduced by Portugal and Brazil, “The Memory of the Smell of Things” reached the Portuguese cinemas in November of last year and is a fifth feature film by António Ferreira, joining “A Bela América” (2023), “Pedro and Inês” (2018), “Embargo” (2010) and “Forget everything I said” (2002).