Films about mountains, mountain culture, and mountain scenery were the first objective of the Montanha Pico Festival program, which every year since 2015 has presented films on Portugal’s highest mountain, the island of Pico. In recent years, “Made in the Azores” sessions, dedicated to what is made on the islands of the Azores, have been added to the program, creating an opportunity for works produced on the islands or by Azoreans to reach the local big-screen.
“A Mulher que Morreu de Pé,” the latest film by Rosa Coutinho Cabral, is a feature film ‘made in Azores’ and kicks off the 2025 edition of the festival. The film opens on Friday, January 3, at 9pm at the Madalena Auditorium and is nominated for the PAA! Awards – Azorean Audiovisual Awards, to be held the following day.
“What interested me, as in all the films I make about a person, was finding the cinematographic form of Natália Correia,” admits director Rosa Coutinho Cabral, adding that she is ‘very happy to be part of the festival again’, after having presented the film ‘Coração Negro’, a work of fiction shot on the island of Pico itself.
“A Mulher que Morreu de Pé” is more than a fictionalized documentary; is a poetic casting with actors who wander between a film and a play, which includes some of Natália Correia’s friends and the documentary machine of her enormous archive, which allowed the director to take a long, poetic and emotional journey, ”in search of my Natália, the poet and anti-fascist all her life, driven by freedom against any form of oppression.” Natália is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in Portuguese culture, literature, and politics before and after April 25.

Rosa Coutinho Cabral was born in Ponta Delgada. In her teens, she went to Lisbon, where she graduated from the National Conservatory Film School with a degree in film. At the same time, she works as a director. Her filmography includes the aforementioned “Coração Negro”, for which she won the Best Director Award at the Krajina Film Festival (Bosnia) in 2017, received the Audience Award for Best Film at Caminhos do Cinema Português and Best Feature Film at the ARFF International Film Festival in Amsterdam, among others. On the weekend of January 3 to 5, the program at the Madalena Auditorium is filled with films “made in Azores.” The Montanha Pico Festival continues in January until the 30th, on the screens of the Whalers’ Museum on Tuesdays and in the Municipal Auditorium of Lajes do Pico on Thursdays. For more information and the agenda, visit picofestival.com and follow the Facebook page.

From MiratecArts

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks the Luso-American Education Foundation for sponsoring FILAMENTOS.