According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham was 100 when his son Isaac was born, and Sara, his wife, was no longer fertile. Isaac was one of three Israeli patriarchs, having died at the age of 180, after a peaceful life in Canaan, which would have been a lot shorter had his father sacrificed him on Mount Moriah as a young man. Fábio Silva revisits this precise famous biblical episode in “The Death of Isaac”, offering an alternative version in which matriarch Sara’s calls for divine intervention were not enough to make Abraham back down from his test of faith and obedience to God. Filmed in black and white, in a framed “square” format, the narrative is based on the latent tension between father and son during their return from the mountain after the aborted sacrifice, exploring the parent’s attempt at penance and the beloved son’s disillusion, in a recurring image that resembles Michelangelo’s powerful “Pietà” sculpture (1499). (PC)