A few weeks ago someone asked me if I knew about that film that recreates a Manet painting. The question was obviously about Olympia I & II. If there’s something we can say about Abrantes’ work is that it goes from Manet paintings to the humble life of a super-awarded football player, with a cleverness so refined that it stays in our minds for years.

Diamantino, the most recent film and first feature directed by Gabriel Abrantes’, co-directed with Daniel Schmidt, speaks to our hearts through the innocent soul of Diamantino (Carloto Cotta), a football player that loses his skills when he sees a boat coming with refugees.

We are pulled to a futurist environment, something we got already familiar with in The Artificial Humors, the short film about the lesbian robot who’s learning to understand and feel love.  

The odyssey of Diamantino, leads us to think, in a very light way, in the cruelty of the world. It’s a film that with a few laughs leaves us reflecting on the refugees crisis, on the power of propaganda, on the dangers of cloning humans and most of all, on the delicacy of the human life.

In a time where serious questions need to be put, serious films about serious social issues with a taste of humor is something we need more often. This is the stronger part of Diamantino, a very serious film about human life, love and the empathy for the peers.

After winning the Grand Prize of the Semaine de La Critique at Cannes Festival last year, the film is going to have its theater release in Portugal on the 4th of April. Don’t miss out the opportunity of seeing fluffy dogs in a football field.