Lines of Wellington

In the autumn of 1810, the French forces of Marshal Masséna are invading Portugal and are temporarily halted by the Anglo-Portuguese army under Viscount Wellington at the Battle of Bussaco. As a bitter winter approaches, Wellington withdraws his troops towards the fortifications he has prepared in secret at the Lines of Torres Vedras. Using a scorched earth defence, he forces the inhabitants to evacuate the land in front of the Lines and destroys all supplies which could be useful to the French. The film illustrates these dramatic events by a series of vignettes which show the effects on combatants, both regular soldiers and guerrillas, and on the civilian population.

• John Malkovich as General Wellington
• Soraia Chaves as Martírio
• Vincent Pérez as Lévêque
• Marisa Paredes as Dona Filipa
• Melvil Poupaud as Marshal Massena
• Mathieu Amalric as General Marbot
• Elsa Zylberstein as Sister Irmã Cordélia
• Christian Vadim as Marshal Soult
• Ricardo Pereira
• Carloto Cotta as Pedro de Alencar
• Nuno Lopes as Francisco Xavier
• Jemima West as Maureen
• Catherine Deneuve as Severina
• Isabelle Huppert as Cosima Pia
• Malik Zidi as Octave Ségur
• Chiara Mastroianni as Hussardo
• Michel Piccoli as Leópold Scheitzer
• Victoria Guerra as Clarissa
• Maria João Bastos as Maria de Jesus
• Marcello Urgeghe as Jonathan Foster
• José Afonso Pimentel as Zé Maria

Jaime N. Christley of Slant Magazine wrote "Dull but never dreary, Lines of Wellington was one of the projects in Raúl Ruiz's pipeline before he passed away last year".^[6]

According to Xan Brooks of The Guardian "This epic historical pageant 'conceived by' the late director Raoul Ruiz won't win the top prize in Venice, but it's full of life"^[7]

• List of submissions to the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Portuguese submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film