‘The Tsugua Diaries’: Cannes Review

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‘The Tsugua Diaries’: Cannes Review screendaily.com/reviews/the-tsugua-diaries-cannes-review/5161695.article By Jonathan Romney16 July 2021

Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro deliver .the oddest, most playful product of lockdown cinema.

Source: O Som e a Fúria ‘Tsugua Diaries’ Dirs. Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes. Portugal. 2021. 102 mins. ‘Tsugua’ is not a place, it’s more a state of being – and it’s also the word ‘August’ in reverse. It gives its name to a film made largely in August – in Portuguese, ‘Agosto’, hence the original title Diários de Otsoga – by experimentally minded duo Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes. Fazendeiro is known for her documentaries (Black Sun, Motu Maeva) while Gomes has become a festival favourite with his hybrid fictions (The Arabian Nights, Our Beloved Month of August). So, given their respective approaches, it’s fair to be perplexed about the specific nature of their very ludic collaboration – which could be seen as a either a documentary about the making of a fiction film, or a fiction about a documentary, or both. Either way, this intensely meta, but very laidback experiment in COVID-era cinema is one of the more idiosyncratic highlights in this year’s Directors Fortnight, and while it’s too wilfully esoteric to have the niche commerciality of previous Gomes films like Tabu, festivals should take to it warmly.

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