Vitalina Varela

Vitalina finally arrives in Portugal from Cape Verde at the age of 55. She waited over 20 years for a plane ticket, and now she is too late: her husband died three days earlier. Irritated, she tries to find her way around the deceased's house in the Lisbon suburb of Fontainhas and reconstruct his life. While the residents of the neighbourhood visit her, Vitalina reflects on her time with her husband, the time spent together and the time spent apart. But even in the shabby church of the village, where Vitalina talks to the ageing priest, there seems to be no comfort to be found ... With VITALINA VARELA, Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa takes his cinematic art to new heights. The film images peel out of the darkness of the screen like artful paintings. A hypnotic stream of images that embeds the amateur actors, some of whom Costa has worked with for years, in a moving story. VITALINA VARELA has been hailed worldwide as a cinematic masterpiece.