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Film Benilde, or the Virgin Mother (1975)

  • Benilder_large

Although he was born in 1908, Manoel de Oliveira still maintains a formidable cinematic output. The centenarian Portuguese director has long broken the commercial convention for more literary pursuits — basing his films on plays, novels, and essays — often winkingly acknowledging the problem of cinematic translation in the process. As part of its retrospective series, BAM screens de Oliveira's gorgeous adaptation of José Régio's 1947 play Benilde ou a Virgem Mãe, which chronicles the uproar surrounding an unmarried girl's allegedly immaculate pregnancy and uses it as a critique of religious folly and social stigma.

– Chelsea Bauch

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