Cinema
The Given Word
O pagador de promessas
Anselmo Duarte · 1962
Synopsis
Zé do Burro, a small farmer, has made a vow in a candomblé terreiro for his donkey Nicolau to recover: to share his land with the poor and carry a heavy wooden cross to the church of Saint Barbara in Salvador, Iansã and Saint Barbara being one and the same for him. The donkey healed, the land shared, he arrives before the church with his wife Rosa. Father Olavo refuses to let the cross in and offers him another penance, which Zé rejects. The square fills with vendors, worshippers, capoeiristas and onlookers, and a journalist turns the affair into an agrarian cause.
Context
Adapted from Dias Gomes's play, the film was directed and written by Anselmo Duarte, with Leonardo Villar as Zé do Burro. It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962, the only Brazilian feature film to have won it and the first winner from the Southern Hemisphere, and was then nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. AlloCiné also mentions a jury prize at the Cartagena festival.
Who it is for
A film of an hour and a half with a very readable narrative; released in France under the title La Parole donnée, it was re-released in cinemas there in 2008.
Prizes and reception
The only Palme d'Or of Brazilian cinema, the film then competed for the Oscar.