The Portuguese Nun

Poetry and mischief mix to idiosyncratic effect in the latest from Eugène Green, one of European cinema's most distinctive voices. Largely shot in Portuguese, this is at once a film about film, a sidelong tribute to Portuguese cinema (more than one Oliveira regular appears in the cast) and a love letter to the city of Lisbon. Perversely, Green casts a Portuguese performer, Leonor Baldaque, as a French actress who comes to Lisbon to shoot a minimalist costume romance. Exploring the city, Baldaque's Julie forms connections with a solitary aristocrat and, then, with her co-star - but her most telling encounters prove to be with a young orphaned boy and with the nun of the title, the real-life counterpart to her film role. Production N Jonathan Romney, www.bfi.org.uk