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.
Set Hares Running selected for the international competition at Docluanda
Set Hares Running, directed by Rui Pinheiro and produced by Red Desert, was selected for the international competition at the 2023 edition of Docluanda in Angola.
Shipwrecked selected to Caminhos do Cinema Português Festival
The film, a co-production between Red Desert - Curtas Vila do Conde CRL and directed by Pedro Neves, will be featured in the Outros Olhares section of the Festival.
As Maçãs Azuis selected for Porto Post Doc
As Maçãs Azuis, by Ricardo Leite was selected for the Porto Post Doc 2022 Spoken Film Competition. The film is produced by Red Desert.
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.