Twenty-third session of the programme Manoel de Oliveira and Portuguese Cinema 2, with the screening of João Mário Grilo's "The King's Trial" (1990), presented by programmer and teacher Pedro Crispim.

O PROCESSO DO REI | THE KING'S TRIAL

João Mário Grilo | POR, FRA, GER, ITA | 1989 | 87'

At that time, Portugal offered a strange spectacle to Europe. Dom Afonso, son of the happy Dom João de Bragança, was reigning, mad and imbecile. His wife, the daughter of the Duke of Nemours and cousin of Louis XIV, dared to conceive the project of dethroning her husband. The king's stupidity justified the queen's audacity. Despite being stronger than normal, having slept with his wife for a long time, he was accused of impotence by her, and Marie Françoise having acquired in the kingdom, through skill, what Alphonse had lost through rage, she had him imprisoned (November 1667) and soon obtained a bull from Rome that confirmed her virginity and blessed her marriage to her brother-in-law, Pedro.