Running time: 102 mins
Genre:
Release Date: 02/12/2024
The Vows [A Promessa, 1973] is António de Macedo's landmark piece of cinema from the closing years of Portugal's dictatorship. A young newlywed couple, living in a devout fishing village have committed themselves to celibacy in fulfilment of a pledge made to God to spare the life of the husband's father from a deadly storm at sea. But the young wife struggles when a wounded gypsy is given shelter in their home. And violent consequences are unleashed across their entire community. The Vow tested the limits of censorship at the time by making a challengingly explicit statement about the entanglement of human sexuality and blind religious faith. (Digital copy by Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema)
Introduction by Hilary Owen - Senior Research Fellow in Portuguese at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Professor of Portuguese and Luso-African Studies at the University of Manchester.
Q&A with António de Sousa Dias - Composer, multimedia artist, researcher, and the son of director António de Macedo