I saw Le Monde Vivant, Eugène Green's film 20 years ago, when it played and won the first edition of IndieLisboa (2004). My reaction to the film was immediate amazement.
What's so special about this film, a fairy tale about a badly shaved ogre with two children living in a pantry, a wife he holds captive in a chapel, who is confronted by two knights in jeans, one with a lion and the other without, determined to confront the monster and save the maiden? The real pleasure of this film is believing what you see and hear. I did. Yes, the dog is a lion, the lion can cry and a tree can be a woman.
Today, 20 years later, I'm a film producer and one of the next films I'm going to release is by director Eugène Green, called The Tree of Knowledge which, like Le Monde Vivant, establishes a pact with the viewer: an Ogre who kidnaps tourists in Lisbon to turn them into animals. I won't tell you any more for now. (Luís Urbano)

An ogre wants to get rid of his wife in order to to marry a young lady that he has imprisoned in a chapel. He also holds two children captive.
Two knights set off to fight him. One has a lion, the other doesn't, and both wear trousers made from Genova cotton cut in the style of Nimes.
This story, set in the present, is intensely pertinant to our times.