“All the evil in the world comes from the fact we care about one another.”

Now in his 100th year, the world's oldest working filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira brings another great work to MIFF after last year's Christopher Columbus - The Enigma and 2007's Belle Toujours.

Based on a short story by Portuguese realist Eça de Queirós, Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl recounts a tale of a love just out of reach. A stranger on a train is told the story of Macário, a young man smitten with a beautiful blonde-haired girl. With the realisation that the girl is beyond his means, Macário goes to great lengths to make his fortune and win her hand - but fate, he finds, has other plans.

A charming little jewel of a film, full of grace and subtle wickedness.