''In Vanda's Room'' ( Portuguese: ''No Quarto da Vanda'', 2000) is a docufiction (a subgenre of cinéma vérité) film by Portuguese director Pedro Costa. This is the second film in his Fontainhas trilogy.

Overview

The film follows the daily life of Vanda Duarte, a

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...

addict, in the Fontainhas district, a shanty outskirt of

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

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

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

an immigrants 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 Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises ...

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'' ( pt, Juventude em Marcha, literally "Youth on the March") is a 2006 docufiction feature film directed by Portuguese director Pedro Costa. It was third feature by Costa set in Lisbon's Fontainhas neighborhood (after ''Ossos'' ...

'' (''Colossal Youth'', 2006). The

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

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 The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

Prize at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 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'', directe ...

Home video

This film, together with

(1997) and Colossal Youth (2006), is released by the

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

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