Tarrafal will have International premiere in CPH:DOX
Decades of conflict, gang dominance and violent clashes with the police have taken their toll on bodies, faces and buildings in S. João de Deus – a neighbourhood on the wrong side of the train tracks in the part of Porto where tourists never go.
But the residents of the dilapidated neighbourhood have defended their homes and special community for just as long.
Pedro Neves continues and renews the Portuguese tradition of investigating the origins of melancholy in madness, and has created his very own variation of hard and dark social realism with an almost supernatural edge of something threatening and inexplicable. An atmosphere, which has a historical foundation in grainy VHS images of hot-tempered women who swear at the police from the windows of a dilapidated apartment block, but which in today’s moment meet us like a silent and bare-chested man on horseback. If ‘gentrification blues’ was a genre, ‘Tarrafal’ would be the sound of a hoarse voice singing at night. And as a film, it is an unmistakably Portuguese and strangely haunting experience.
Two documentaries from Red Desert at the Caminhos do Cinema Português Festival
Lucefece: Where there is no vision, the people will perish, by Ricardo Leite, and Dreams of a Revolution, by Pedro Neves, have been selected for the Caminhos Selection at the Caminhos do Cinema Português Festival.
Our Short Doc The Beach selected to the Doclisboa International Film Festival
In today's society we are daily invaded by images of beautiful and young bodies. Older bodies are hidden and forgotten as if they were steeped in negativity.
The Melusinas in Festa do Avante!
Melusinas on the banks of the river, by Melanie Pereira and produced by Red Desert, will be shown at Festa do Avante.
Inn won the Ciudad de Martil award for Best Documentary
We are happy to inform you that our film Inn / Hospedaria, directed by Pedro Neves, won the Ciudad de Martil award for Best Documentary at the Martil Film Festival in Morocco.