Though mostly unknown in the US, João César Monteiro remains one of the most provocative and influential figures of Portuguese cinema, distinguished for his uniquely sumptuous, caustic, and deeply funny work, which is as beautiful as it is scandalizing. He shoots his films with the patience of Antonioni but with a view of life closer to that of Philip Roth. Hovering Over Water is one of the most underseen films in Monteiro’s career, but also one of his most beautiful, in an implicit homage to Piero della Francesca and the Italian Renaissance. A Tuscan translator returns to Portugal with her children one year after her husband died on the country’s southern coast. One day, a wounded American washes ashore, and the widow finds herself drawn to him. She takes him home, and as they talk, their mutual attraction grows, albeit fragile under the shadow of political violence and conspiracies. “Monteiro’s extraordinary visual style…is shaped by [his] proclaimed distrust of artificial light…and his desire to capture the effulgent mystery of sunlight and its shadows” –The Harvard Film Archive.