Afonso’s Smile

[Cremildo]

Award-winning Portuguese auteur João Pedro Rodrigues (“Will-O’-the-Wisp”) is developing his next feature, the Luca Guadagnino-produced “Afonso’s Smile,” a coming-of-age story about a teenage boy who discovers his sexuality amid the upheaval of the Portuguese revolution. The director will be presenting the film during the Venice Gap-Financing Market, which runs on the Lido from Aug. 29 – 31.

“Afonso’s Smile” begins in the aftermath of Portugal’s April 1974 Revolution, as 16-year-old Afonso returns from Macau to live with his artist mother, Noémia, in Lisbon, a city still caught in the throes of post-revolutionary fervor. As the capital begins to awaken from decades of dictatorship, Afonso is stirring with his own emotional and sexual awakening.

[...] “Afonso’s Smile” revolves around that “idea of delay,” said the director, mirroring the protagonist’s late awakening to his sexuality, as well as the political reality for the LGBTQ community in a country that was just emerging from nearly half a century of dictatorship.

“Homosexuality was only legalized in Portugal in ’82. The revolution was ’74,” said Rodrigues. “There was a conservative behavior. The mindset didn’t really change concerning sexuality and openness to new forms of sexuality.” When it came to Portugal’s LGBTQ community, “those rights were not conquered at the same time as freedom was conquered.” [source]