Cinema Guild Nabs Manoel de Oliveira's 'The Strange Case of Angelica'

Cinema Guild has snatched up the U.S. theatrical rights for Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira's Cannes "Un Certain Regard" entry, "The Strange Case of Angelica." (via IndieWire.) CG's Ryan Krivoshey says the film will be released domestically "this winter," which is a surprisingly fast turn around as compared to both other de Oliveira films ("Eccentricities of a Blond Haired Girl," which played in Toronto last fall and which Cinema Guild is just now finally releasing into theaters — and only in NYC and LA, thus far) and Cannes entries from divisive filmmakers in general.

This is another exciting acquisition for Cinema Guild, who may not have the means to put out as many films as, say, IFC Films, but who've already brought us both Claire Denis's "35 Shots of Rum" and Maren Ade's "Everyone Else," two of the finest films of the last couple years.

The IndieWire article describes "The Strange Case of Angelica" as "a tale of a young photographer who falls madly in love with a woman he can never have, except in his dreams." Krivoshey calls the film's dream-sequences "Chagall-esque," and claims 'Angelica' to be "one of the most charming films [we will] ever see."

The film stars Ricardo Trepa — who's been in basically every de Oliveira film of the last decade-plus, either as lead or supporting character (he's lead here)—and the radiant Pilar Lopez de Ayala, who some will recognize from José Luis Guerín's absurdly underrated "In the City of Sylvia." Reviews coming out of Cannes seemed to be mixed at the time, but this is de Oliveira we're talking about — he's a 101 year-old strident formalist who's controlled style isn't for all tastes, but who almost always succeeds by his own established terms. Which is to say his work is divisive — this writer is a fan, but not everyone is, including even some Playlist members — and also that 'Angelica,' like 'Eccentricities,' probably won't play outside of a few major cities.

In other Cinema Guild-related news, the distributor has already acquired the rights to Nouvelle Vague legend Jacques Rivette's latest dramedy, "Around a Small Mountain," and (per their Twitter feed) has finally set July 9th as that film's theatrical release date. In addition to the Rivette, the "Theatrical" page of Cinema Guild's site lists Matt Porterfield's "Putty Hill" and Jeff Malmberg's "Marwencol" (winner of the 2010 SXSW Grand Jury Award for Documentary Feature), though no theatrical release date has been announced for either yet.

Finally, 'Eccentricities,' de Oliveira's film prior to 'Angelica,' is listed as "coming soon to DVD" on Cinema Guild's homepage (hopefully with emphasis on the "soon"). You can read our polar opposite reviews of that film here and here.