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.
Lucefece and As Melusinas à Margem do Rio in Doclisboa's Portuguese Competition
This is great news: Lucefece - Where there is no vision, the people will perish, by Ricardo Leite and As Melusinas à Margem do Rio, by Melanie Pereira, will be in the Portuguese Competition of Doclisboa. There are two Red Desert productions.
As Melusinas à Margem do Rio won three prizes at Doclisboa, included the Award for Best Portuguese Competition Film
As Melusinas à Margem do Rio, directed by Melanie Pereira and produced by Red Desert, won three awards at DocLisboa: The Fernando Lopes Award for Best Portuguese First Film, the School Award for Best Film, and the HBO Award for Best Portuguese Competition Film.
TTAC will have its International Premiere at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival
Time takes a Cigarette, directed by Aya Koretzky and produced by Red Desert, will have its International Premiere at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival.
The Melusinas at the Edge of the River has been selected for the Official Competition of M-DOC
The documentary “The Melusinas at the Edge of the River”, by Melanie Pereira and produced by Red Desert, has been selected for the Official Competition of the Melgaço International Documentary Festival, M-DOC. It is one of the contenders for Best Portuguese Documentary.