Vitalina Varela

Vitalina Varela, a 55-year-old woman from Cape Verde, arrives in Lisbon to sort out the affairs of her husband, who moved suddenly to Portugal twenty-five years ago and died three days before she could reach him. The grim hypnotic microcosm of the now defunct Fontainhas neighborhood, through which the grieving heroine navigates in an attempt to capture whatever is left of her husband, is filled with lost souls and emptied rooms that are engulfed in stunning darkness. The imagery of Costa's suggestive portrait of the Cape Verde diaspora is underlined by static compositions and the ubiquitous chiaroscuro. „I think she wanted to stay in this moment, this moment of mourning. She was going through the worst, most painful moment of her life and I was proposing for her to organize, to work out and reveal these terrible feelings and emotions, to turn all of it into a film.“ P. Costa