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.
Tarrafal in “Expresso” newspaper
"Pedro makes the remains the narrative material. Where there were houses, schools, grocery stores, cafes, corners that each had as their own, all that was left was the wind moving through the abandoned land". (Valdemar Cruz)
Above our Means in “Público” newspaper, by Jorge Mourinha
Jorge Mourinha, film critic from "Público", writes about the filme Acima das Nossas Possibilidades - Above Our Means. The world premiere was in Porto Post Doc.
As Melusinas à Margem do Rio was selected for the Doc Alliance Feature Film Award
As Melusinas à Margem do Rio was selected for the Doc Alliance Feature Film Award, which will be officially announced at the Marché du Film du Festival de Cannes in May and will then have its international premier at DocuDays in Ukraine in June.
Dreams of a Revolution selected in Djarfogo, Cape Verde
The film Dreams of a Revolution, by Pedro Neves, was selected for the Djarfogo International Festival, in Cape Verde.