Miguel Gomes at Potemkine

Miguel Gomes chez Potemkine, Paris - January 28

I was so thrilled to read that one of my favourite film-makers of these last years, the Portuguese Miguel Gomes, would have made a conversation with the public at the Boutique Potemkine on January 28!
I even run away from work a couple of hours earlier to be sure to have a seated place (the space for presentations at Potemkine is very cosy but very small).
So here I was last Thursday, seated in the front row, ready to listen to the director whose last film, As Mil e uma Noites, has arrived n° 1 in my TOP 15 Movies of 2015.
And I wasn’t disppointed.
Gomes, 43 years old, has talked in a very good French with a lovely portuguese accent for more than 40 minutes about his cinema, and also replied to many questions from the audience at the end of the conversation.
What I  liked about him, is that he took his time to discuss about things, trying his best to let people understand what he really meant. He patiently went through the different processes of making movies, always with a great sense of humour and a shy modesty when fans were talking enthusiastically about his cinema (not to mention his discomfort when they show the first scenes of his movie : he really didn’t know where to look... he was so funny!) :

Potemkine was celebrating the sortie in DVD of Les Milles et une Nuit box set (and if you didn't see this epic movie in cinemas please see it now in this format!) but they have also asked Gomes to choose his favourite 10 DVDs from their shop and this was his list (great directors have great taste!):
Lucky Star/The River by Frank Borzage (1929) 

Secret beyond the door… by Fritz Lang (1947)  

Ugetsu Monogatari (Les Contes de la lune vague après la pluie) by Kenji Mizoguchi (1953)

Estate Violenta by Valerio Zurlini (1959)

La ligne de mire by Jean-Daniel Pollet (1960)

Muriel ou le temps d’un retour by Alain Resnais (1963)

Céline et Julie von ten bateau by Jacques Rivette (1974)

Khane-ye doust kodjast (Où est la maison de mon ami?) by Abbas Kiarostami (1987) 

Cemetery of Splendour by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2015)

And last, but not least, Box Set by Joao César Monteiro 

While at Potemkine I found out about a book written on Gomes cinema: Au pied du Mont Tabou, basically the report of three days conversations in Lisbon between Gomes and some of his usual collaborators (the director of photography Rui Poças and his assistant Lisa Persson, the sound engineer Vasco Pimentel and the producer Luis Urbano) together with French journalist Cyril Neyrat:

Of course, I bought it and then asked Gomes to sign it for me! (but I keep secret his signature until the Zazie D’or.. you’ll see why).
Here’s Zazie talking to Gomes (picture by my friend Cristina):

It was such a lovely meeting and I enjoyed immensely listening to Gomes.

Please have a look at the video of his conversation at Potemkine: not only you’ll hear very interesting things, but you can see Zazie seated in the front row. 
How can you ask for more??!!!