Diamantino

Dir. Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt | Portugal, France, Brazil 2018 | 97 min | 15 | Subtitled

Throwing fascism, colonialism and gender into a cinematic blender, Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt serve up a candyfloss farce that’s an absurdist delight.

Diamantino, Portugal’s (the world’s!) top football player, is gloriously dumb and sweet-hearted. However, his footie genius has a strange manifestation – every time he faces the goal, his vision fills with giant fluffy puppies bounding through pink powder. 

When an encounter with some refugees suddenly throws sadness into his previously unblemished psyche, he is left with a profound desire: fatherhood. Mix in some lesbian secret police investigating offshore accounts in Panama, a nationalistic plot to get Portugal to leave the EU, along with Diamantino’s psychopathic twin sisters and you have a satire that’s queer, contemporary and fantastically good fun. 

Abrantes and Schmidt deliver a film that shines bright like a... joyful postmodern political fantasy, rightfully scooping the Critics Week Grand Prize at Cannes.

Tickets: £7.75 / £6.00 (inc. Poly Fund)