Greice

Greice is named after its heroine, a 21-year-old Brazilian woman, somewhat overly prone to lying and scheming, but armoured with an infectious charm. Studying Fine Arts at a Lisbon University, and working as a costume designer for a pop singer lioness, Greice meets Alfonso while location scouting for a music video. The two begin a relationship, but during a party they are involved in an incident that puts the renewal of Greice’s Portuguese residency into peril. She returns to her hometown in Brazil hoping to resolve the situation, but is forced instead to confront some of the consequences of her lifestyle. With Greice, Leonardo Mouramateus returns with a third feature. It is a charming comedy of loves lost and found, that owes much of its enchantment to its upbeat and resolute central character. The script cleverly plays on the themes of fabulation and forgery and as it unfolds, we tumble into touching dissections of human relationships, cross-cultural misunderstandings, art world parodies, meditations on identity and, crucially, a mystery to solve. With its high-speed dialogue and endless deceits, Greice is a contemporary film that nods proudly to Hollywood’s classic screwball comedies. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)