To Die Like a Man is a 2009

2009 in film

The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note...

 Portuguese

Cinema of Portugal

Portuguese cinema has a long tradition, reaching back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century. In the 1950s, Cinema Novo, sprang up as a movement concerned with showing realism in film, in the vein of Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by João Pedro Rodrigues

João Pedro Rodrigues

João Pedro Rodrigues is a Portuguese film director whose activity started in 1997.Having studied at the School of Theatre and Cinema of Portugal, João Pedro Rodrigues started his career as an assistant director and editor in several features, directed, for example, by Alberto Seixas Santos and...

, produced by the production company Rosa Filmes

Rosa Filmes

Rosa Filmes is a Portuguese independent motion picture production and distribution company.Founded by Joaquim Sapinho in 1993, Rosa Filmes has produced until now:...

.

It tells the story of a homosexual drag-queen at the end of his career. The cast includes several Portuguese real-life drag-queens, with no previous, or little, acting experience. The story has been allegedly inspired by the real story of Joaquim Centúrio de Almeida (artistic name: Ruth Bryden), a Portuguese drag-queen, and has motivated a lawsuit on account of plagiarism of a biographical book on the life of Almeida by the late author Carlos Castro

Carlos Castro (journalist)

Carlos Castro was a Portuguese television personality and journalist, who had worked in the media for over 35 years, mainly covering gossip items about musicians, actors and celebrities. He became well known after he had come out on television and participated in the Big Show SIC, presented by...

, who was murdered in 2011.

Cast

• Fernando Gomes - Teixeira
• Jenny Larue - Jenny
• Miguel Loureiro - Paula
• Chandra Malatitch - Zé Maria
• Fernando Santos

Awards and nominations

It competed in the Un Certain Regard

Un Certain Regard

Un Certain Regard is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection. It is run at the Salle Debussy, parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or.This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob...

 section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival

2009 Cannes Film Festival

The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...

. It was selected as the Portuguese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 at the 83rd Academy Awards

83rd Academy Awards

The 83rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2010 and took place February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, Academy Awards ...

 but it didn't make the final shortlist.

Critical reception

Critical reception has been mixed. Variety.com's Leslie Felperin stated that he disliked the film's excessive running time (138'), that too much of the time is taken up by music and singing, feeling that the movie and storyline were unremarkable. However, the movie was voted "Best Undistributed Film" of 2009 in the Village Voice's 10th Annual Film Critics' Poll. "A fabulously sad fable about a Fado-singing, pooch-pampering trannie growing old, [To Die Like a Man] is also a piece of lyrical, playful, unpredictable filmmaking," wrote film critic J. Hoberman.

See also

• List of submissions to the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Portuguese submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

External links

• To Die Like a Man official page at Rosa Filmes web site (click on "ENG", then on "ABOUT US", then on "FILMS", then on "TO DIE LIKE A MAN")