‘Grand Tour’ competed for the Best Ibero-American Film award alongside ‘El Jockey’ from Argentina, ‘Estimados Señores’ from Colombia, ‘La Infiltrada’ from Spain, and ‘Sujo’ from Mexico.
Miguel Gomes’ film was chosen by the Portuguese Film Academy to represent Portugal in that category.
‘Grand Tour’ stars Gonçalo Waddington and Crista Alfaiate and is based on the concept of a grand journey through Asia, featuring two characters inspired by a travel book by writer Somerset Maugham.
“What we had was a journey and those two characters: a man who runs away from his future wife; and a woman who refuses to believe that the groom is fleeing from her and who stoically pursues him,” recalled Miguel Gomes in an interview last September upon the film’s release in cinemas.
The journey to the East was undertaken by Miguel Gomes and a small team of screenwriters and technicians in the months leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming in several countries, which later helped in writing the script.
During the journey through Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan, Gomes captured images of modern life, karaoke nights, shadow puppetry, anonymous ‘mahjong’ players, bamboo forests, and cities with heavy traffic.
Later, the production built sets in studios in Rome and Lisbon to shoot a black-and-white story set in 1918, featuring Edward (played by actor Gonçalo Waddington), a British Empire civil servant who embarks on a solitary journey through Asia after fleeing his fiancée Molly (played by actress Crista Alfaiate) on the day she arrives for their wedding.
Molly, persistent, tracks her fiancé’s escape throughout their Asian journey.
With ‘Grand Tour’, Miguel Gomes was awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 2024.
The film, a co-production between Portugal, France, and Italy, was Portugal’s candidate for nominations at the Oscars (USA) and Goya Awards (Spain) and has been screened at over 40 film festivals and events.
The Grande Otelo Award of Brazilian Cinema is an initiative by the Brazilian Academy of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts, awarded annually across thirty different categories, recognizing cinema and audiovisual productions premiered and exhibited in the country.
The big winner of Wednesday night was ‘Ainda estou aqui’, directed by Walter Salles, claiming awards in categories including Best Fiction Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actress in a Feature Film (Fernanda Torres), Best Actor in a Feature Film (Selton Mello), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Editing, Best Sound, and Best Soundtrack.
