The Secret of the
Waking Stones

In a isolated village in Alentejo, a conflict is experienced. José Vitorino, one of the biggest landowners in the region rich in prehistoric monuments, plans to build a luxurious manor on a site of ancient stones, a place of devotion and practice of sacred rites. Indifferent to the protests of the people, who believe in the magical powers of the “holy stones” and attribute to their destruction the prolonged drought that has been felt in the region, Jose Vitorino hires an architect to make the project for the new house. On Christmas Eve, in the midst of winter solstice, a strange ceremony around a tapir, an altar of bloody sacrifices in the earliest times of prehistory, unleashes a nefarious spell. A struggle “against time” is initiated to nullify the effects of the defective ritual.

António de Macedo (1931-2017), one of the pioneers of the Portuguese “Cinema Novo”, was born in Lisbon on July 5th 1931. After graduating in architecture, he worked at Lisbon Town Hall as an architect, a career which he abandoned to work as a director. He started his film-maker career with the avant-garde short films Verão Coincidente [Coincident Summer] and Nicotiana (1963). His first feature film Domingo à Tarde [Sunday Afternoon], 1965, was presented in the Official Selection of the Venice Film Festival and A Promessa [The Vow], 1973, in the Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival.
During the dictatorship his movies were almost always at odds with the Portuguese censorship. After the carmation revolution in 1974, Macedo worked intensively in many political television films and TV series.
At the same time he kept on making full-length features, such as O Princípio da Sabedoria [The Principle of Wisdom] or As Horas de Maria [Twelve Hours with Maria]. This last one, when released in 1979, was heavily attacked by the Portuguese catholic Church under the charge of “blasphemy” and “moral and religious outrage”.
Notwithstanding his extensive and original filmography, and in spite of the cultural trend of his cinema, Macedo’s applications to get support from the film financing programs of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture were systematically rejected. Without being able to go on filming, Macedo went on along with his other specializations, namely investigating and teaching film theory and film aesthetics, writing speculative fiction, as well on comparative religion. He wrote numerous books and essays.