Anthony Quinn has still got it, and not just in the baby-making department.
The 83-year-old legendary actor and father of 13 children is the heart and soul of the touching family drama Oriundi, screening tonight as part of the Local Heroes International Film Festival closing gala.
Two-time Oscar winner Quinn plays the 93-year-old patriarch of the Padovani clan, a family of Italian immigrants who have lived for generations in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba.
While reluctantly attending his own birthday party at the urgings of friends and family, Giuseppe (Quinn) meets Sofia D'Angelo (Leticia Spiller), a distant relative who is in Brazil doing research on the Padovani family's history.
Giuseppe is struck by the young and beautiful Sofia's resemblance to his late wife Caterina, who died in a plane crash 60 years earlier - a heartbreak from which Giuseppe never truly recovered.
On the pretence of doing research about the clan, Sofia gently inserts herself into the Padovani family routine. She spends time with Guiseppe's grandson Renato (Paulo Betti), who wants to sell the family pasta operation against the wishes of his own son, Stefano (Tiago Real), who is trying to save the family's business legacy.
Sofia also befriends Guiseppe's granddaughter Patty (Gabriela Duarte), a lawyer in training whose true dream is to be come an actress, and gently nudges her in the direction of her true goals.
Somehow, Sofia's presence and passive intervention start causing changes within the Padovani family. Old wounds are healed, respect is regained, forgotten dreams are pursued. Slowly, subtly, something is happening.
Giuseppe, whose failing health and deteriorating family relationships have sapped his will to live, becomes almost obsessed with the idea that Sofia might be the literal reincarnation of Caterina, to the point where he seeks the advice of his doctor friend, Enzo (Paulo Autran), as to whether he's perhaps going senile.
The utter confusion, heartbreak and longing that Giuseppe feels in the presence of this mysterious woman are beautifully portrayed by Quinn. She knows things only Caterina could know, but the possibility that Sofia could somehow be Caterina has Giuseppe both fearing for his sanity and praying that it might be true. A the same time, he can't deny the healing effect her presence is having on the family, and on Giuseppe himself.
With a script by Marcos Bernstein, writer of the Oscar-nominated Central Station, Oriundi speaks of the joy and pain of family relations, while also flirting with what lies beyond the mundane world we know. Heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time, it's a wonderful testament to Quinn's skill as an actor and a perfect choice to bid farewell to another year of Local Heroes.
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