''In Vanda's Room'' (

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''No Quarto da Vanda'', 2000) is a

docufiction Docufiction (or docu-fiction) is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or cinéma vérité) a ...

(a subgenre of

cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or ...

) film by Portuguese director

Pedro Costa Pedro Costa (born 30 December 1958) is a Portuguese film director. He is best known for his sequence of films set in Lisbon, which focuses on the lives of the impoverished residents of a slum in the Fontainhas neighbourhood. Biography After com ...

. This is the second film in his Fontainhas trilogy.

Overview

The film follows the daily life of Vanda Duarte, a heroin addict, in the Fontainhas district, a shanty outskirt of Lisbon. The film's focus is also on the community of the district and its townscape. ''No Quarto da Vanda'' follows the drama film ''

Ossos ''Ossos'' (English: "Bones") is a 1997 Portuguese film directed by Pedro Costa. The film was shot in the Fontainhas district of Lisbon (also known as "Estrela d'Africa"), where disadvantaged dwellers and immigrants from former Portuguese colonie ...

'' (1997) in which Vanda Duarte plays as an

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

. The film took a year to shoot after the (initially) one-person crew settled in the location, where Vanda and the community including Cape Verdean

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

lived depressed lives. In spite of its three-hour length, the director Pedro Costa made the film in a realist style by using fixed shots entirely. Melancholic life of the community was shot on digital video in a low-key way. Costa said about his impression of the district in a conversation with Jean-Pierre Gorin

When I entered the Fontainhas area, there were colors and smells that made me remember the things and events of the past, and also ideas about people to which I am attracted. These ideas nestled close to each other, living together even as they led very solitary lives because of violent and painful separation. A form of interesting and incompatible relationships existed in this.

The film also sees the Fontainhas district slowly being

demolished Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...

. The displaced inhabitants are featured in Costa's next film '' Juventude em Marcha'' (''Colossal Youth'', 2006). The Criterion Collection described the film as "burrow ngeven deeper into the Lisbon ghetto and the lives of its desperate inhabitants... with the intimate feel of a documentary and the texture of a Vermeer painting" and praised its "unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people".

Cast

* Vanda Duarte as Self * Lena Duarte as Self * Zita Duarte as Self * Pedro Lanban * António 'Pango' Semedo * Paulo Nunes * Paulo Jorge Gonçalves * Manuel Gomes Miranda * Evangelina Nelas * Fernando Paixão * Diogo Miranda

Credits

* Director: Pedro Costa * Producer: Karl Baumgartner * Producer: Andres Pfäffli / Elda Guidinetti * Producer: Francisco Villa-Lobos * Cinematography: Pedro Costa * Editing: Dominique Auvray * Sound: Philippe Morel * Sound: Mathieu Imbert * Sound: Stephan Konken

Accolate

Despite its highly fictional nature, its elusive classification and its documentary-like hybridization allowed it to win the FIPRESCI Prize at the

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festival held biennially in Yamagata, Japan ( ). It was first held in October 1989, which makes it one of the longest running documentary film festivals in the world and ...

in 2001 "for presenting life in its near-original form". Pedro Costa collected the France Culture Award (Foreign Cineaste of the Year) for directing the film at

2002 Cannes Film Festival The 55th Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May 2002. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film '' The Pianist'' directed by Roman Polanski. The festival opened with '' Hollywood Ending'', direct ...

Home video

This film, together with

(1997) and

Colossal Youth ''Colossal Youth'' is the only studio album by Welsh post-punk band Young Marble Giants, released in February 1980 on Rough Trade Records. Young Marble Giants were offered the opportunity to record the album after Rough Trade heard just two son ...

(2006), is released by the Criterion Collection in a box set ''Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa''.

References

External links

* * *
Podcast with Pedro Costa (on the "Letters from Fontainhas" Criterion DVD set, 2010), GreenCine Daily

''Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy: Rooms for the Living and the Dead''
an essay by Cyril Neyrat at the Criterion Collection 2000 films 2000 drama films Ethnofiction films Films about heroin addiction Films about immigration Films about race and ethnicity Films directed by Pedro Costa Portuguese drama films 2000s Portuguese-language films Films shot in Portugal {{Portugal-film-stub