In the beginning was the end: a funeral, a crashed car. Gradually we see signs of extreme violence, which reveals an absence. Rumors are heard, nightmares of a child. An atmosphere of apathetic despair gradually forms. We enter a kind of 'zone', a place out of the world, a non-place, a limbo close to post-apocalyptic. Here, in these ruins of civilization, there are men wandering - a woman and a child, inside a house, will also appear - through remnants of human existence, like 'zombies' roaming with no apparent reason. From time to time, there is a kind of return to a vague normality - a man, who will appear as the protagonist, talks to a preschool teacher who reveals the death of his daughter. As usual in Aguilar's films, there are only small narrative clues that lead us to what is essential: the experience of men abandoned in these ruins. Even the child, in its candor, seems only a ghost, a spectre of something that has already disappeared. The cinematographic construction (the framing of the shot, its layers of light, and the insistence on filming mirrors or just silhouettes) demonstrates the elusive, impressionistic qualities of Aguilar's aesthetic, accentuating a "living dead" temperament that the characters assume. Not surprisingly, the title of the film refers directly to an imaginary plant - the mariphasa - which has the power to prevent a man from becoming a werewolf (this plant is merely cinematic, appearing in the 1935 classic "Werewolf of London" directed by Stuart Walker). In fact, Aguilar's film seems always on the verge of crossing the barrier between the human and the nonhuman, but only a vague idea of avoiding destruction can be glimpsed: perhaps music has that power? "Mariphasa" ends with Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight," reminding us that romance can be a last salvation. However, we cannot escape a memory previous to the film and that has in the narrative a destructive apotheosis: this memory is something that hangs over the characters, without them being able to escape from themselves. Sandro Aguilar is one of the most important filmmakers of Curtas Vila do Conde; he has shown almost all of his work at the festival. He won the Portuguese competition with "In Between" in 2001 (a film that will be screened in this edition, in the context of Curtas' 25-year Carte Blanche), and Young Portuguese Filmmaker prize with "Close" in 1998. He is one of the main names of the Shorts Generation. (DR)