A love letter to a changing Lisbon

In Santo António – O Casamenteiro de Lisboa, the director uses Lisbon’s traditional Saint Anthony’s weddings as a starting point to portray a city that seems to be losing some of its familiar landmarks. Released on 10 September, the film became the Portuguese film with the highest cinema attendance on its opening day.

Featuring a stellar cast led by Rita Blanco and Joaquim Monchique, the film also brings together Albano Jerónimo, Maria João Bastos, Ana Bola, Jacqueline Corado, Paco León, João Catarré, Inês Aires Pereira, Maria Rueff, Pedro Nuno, Miguel Amorim, Lídia Franco, Rui Mendes, Joaquim de Almeida, Santiago Lagerfield, Isabel Abreu and Pedro Nercessian, among others.

The story

The film centres on the Casamentos de Santo António, the traditional weddings held in Lisbon on 12 June, a tradition dating back to the 1950s.

Carmo (Rita Blanco) and Valentim (Joaquim Monchique), who are responsible for organising the celebrations, find themselves facing the possibility of the city council selling the rights to the tradition to the French company Stardust, which wants to promote and internationalise the event.

With less financial support and the obligation to prove that they can still organise a successful celebration, the pair must find the right couples to save the weddings, and, with them, their own jobs.

The problem is that the candidates are far from matching the traditional profile of the couples who usually take part in the ceremony. Among dysfunctional families, couples forced into marriage, prisoners, gay couples, older people and candidates deeply committed to religion, Carmo and Valentim eventually bring together an unlikely group that challenges the conventional image of the Casamentos de Santo António.

From there, the film follows the organisers’ mishaps and the candidates’ personal stories as they make their way towards 12 June. Along the way, Ruben Alves builds a portrait of a Lisbon that is no longer quite the same.

The cast

Many of my favourite actors feature in this film. They are familiar faces to Portuguese audiences and, generally speaking, performers whose careers need little introduction.

Even so, there are several performances that deserve to be highlighted.

Rita Blanco continues to demonstrate why she is one of the most remarkable actresses in Portuguese cinema. As Carmo, she balances the toughness of a woman who is tired of fighting with a sensitivity that never disappears. It is a performance that does not rely solely on comedy or drama, but on the way the two intersect in a deeply human character.

Joaquim Monchique, whom I have always regarded as an actor of great intensity, once again demonstrates his talent as Valentim. His comic energy contrasts with Rita Blanco’s restraint, creating a partnership that works particularly well. Their relationship is, for me, one of the film’s pillars.

Ana Bola and Maria Rueff, who have worked together in comedy on many occasions, appear here in roles that, while retaining a humorous dimension, carry considerable emotional weight. What is particularly interesting is seeing them move beyond what audiences usually associate with them, conveying heavier emotions without losing their naturalness.

Inês Aires Pereira, also strongly associated with comedy, demonstrates that she is ready for roles with a more dramatic element. Her scenes with Nuno Nolasco are particularly effective, revealing a side of the actress that deserves further exploration.

Maria João Bastos and Jacqueline Corado, meanwhile, manage to build a remarkably convincing relationship as sisters. Their dynamic is one of the film’s most emotionally successful elements, and there are moments when it goes beyond the simple development of a secondary storyline.

The cast is undoubtedly one of the great strengths of Santo António – O Casamenteiro de Lisboa. However, the sheer number of characters and parallel stories also means that not all of them have the same room to develop. Some relationships could benefit from greater depth, but the ensemble maintains an energy and diversity that contribute to the film’s charm.

Social commentary

Beyond questioning what should be considered traditional about the Casamentos de Santo António, the film presents a Lisbon confronted with change.

The possibility of the celebration’s rights being sold to a foreign company serves as a metaphor for a city in which more and more aspects of everyday life seem to be adapted to new audiences and commercial interests. Ruben Alves does not limit himself to the wedding tradition: he also shows traditional shops disappearing and businesses that remain adapting their offerings and language to meet the demands of tourism.

The image of a café where ordering a galão and a torrada becomes less natural than ordering a latte is simple but effective. Through these small details, the film conveys a broader change: the feeling that what was once familiar is beginning to disappear.

It is well known that humour can be an effective way of expressing social criticism, and Ruben Alves had already demonstrated this ability in The Gilded Cage (A Gaiola Dourada). Here, he once again uses comedy to address a reality that extends beyond Lisbon and can be recognised in other Portuguese cities and around the world.

The film does not seem to suggest that Lisbon should close itself off to tourists or that the city should remain unchanged. Its message is more interesting than that: a city can change without that change having to erase everything that makes it recognisable.

Not everything traditional is necessarily outdated, and preserving certain practices does not mean rejecting change. What Santo António appears to question is the ease with which some traditions are transformed to make them more appealing, more marketable or better suited to new audiences.

In my opinion, this is precisely where the film finds its greatest strength. It is not merely defending the Casamentos de Santo António, but reminding us that a city is also made up of its memories, its habits and the people who grew up there.

Using striking shots of Lisbon, Ruben Alves shows a city gradually closing itself off to some of its traditions. At a time when there is increasing discussion about the closure of traditional shops and the transformation of local commerce, the film touches on a very present concern: what happens when a city begins to be designed more for those who visit it than for those who live there?

The criticism is not directed at tourism itself, but at the possibility of the city losing part of its identity in the process. And that is a discussion the film manages to raise in an accessible way, without setting aside humour or emotion.

A breath of fresh air

I must also mention how enjoyable it was to watch a film so full of colour in the cinema.

At a time when many films seem to favour more restrained cinematography, Santo António – O Casamenteiro de Lisboa is not afraid to use light and colour to establish its visual identity. Lisbon is, in itself, a colourful city, and Ruben Alves makes the most of that characteristic to create images that reinforce the atmosphere of celebration and affection at the heart of the story.

The colour palette is captivating, and there is a visual coherence that contributes to the film’s charm. It is also a quality we have come to associate with the director, who demonstrated a similar ability to film cities with colour, energy and personality in The Gilded Cage (A Gaiola Dourada).

A film not to be missed

Santo António – O Casamenteiro de Lisboa was, perhaps, the best film I have seen in the cinema in 2026 — although I also recognise that I have not seen many, at a time when culture is becoming increasingly inaccessible and cinema ticket prices continue to weigh on many people’s budgets.

I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Portuguese cinema, comedy and, above all, stories that can speak about a city without forgetting the people who live in it.

Santo António – O Casamenteiro de Lisboa is, above all, a declaration of love to a city that is changing. Ruben Alves does not seem to want to stop Lisbon from moving forward, but rather to remind us that a city is measured not only by what it can attract, but also by what it can preserve.