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 The letters written in 1971-2 by Antonio Lobo Antunes, who
has become one of Portugal's most distinguished novelists, trace
the growing despair of a man caught up in a conflict he can see
is ruinous to his own country and to Angolans.
"In 1971 everybody knew it was an unjust war without any
prospect of success," director Ivo Ferreira said at a
post-screening news conference for his film which is in
competition for the main Golden Bear prize.
"Through this war the end of dictatorship in Portugal was
triggered," Ferreira added, referring to Portugal's so-called
"Carnation Revolution" that brought an end in 1974 to more than
four decades of authoritarian rule.
Ferreira's film, with Miguel Nunes portraying Lobo Antunes,
shows how initial camaraderie among Portuguese forces newly
arrived in Angola gradually gives way to demoralisation and
despair in the face of a largely unseen enemy who nevertheless
inflicts casualties with landmines and sneak attacks.
The film shows Portuguese soldiers getting their revenge by
executing captured Angolan rebels in cold blood. In another
scene, a Portuguese soldier cracks and wanders into the jungle
naked, after throwing away his identification tag.
The soldiers and officers who returned home, Ferreira said,
formed the backbone of the revolution, which took its name from
demonstrators stuffing flowers in the muzzles of soldiers'
rifles.
"These officers and soldiers started a revolution...that is what
this Doctor Lobo Antunes experienced in this war, and they were
the fathers of the revolution," Ferreira said.
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He said seeing his own wife reading a book by Lobo Antunes gave him
the idea of having the letters read out in a voiceover by the
doctor's wife at home in Portugal.
"That is the key aspect of the film, without this aspect the film
wouldn't exist," he said.
Margarida Vila-Nova, who plays the wife, told Reuters on the red
carpet for the premiere that she hopes the film will help younger
Portuguese learn about that period of history.
"We know just a little bit about what happened," she said, noting
that people of the older generation rarely talk about it.
"I think this movie can be (a) lesson to the young people."
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said he was proud the film
had been shown in Berlin.
"Not only is it the first time in a long time that we present a long
movie, it is also a film adaptation to one of the main works of our
literature and our contemporary writers," he said.
(Additional reporting by Oliver Ellrodt; Writing by Michael Roddy;
Editing by Ros Russell)
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