| Media Contact: Laine Slater, laine@viff.org or 604.685.0262 x 809 |
| For a printable version of this release, please click here. |  | |
PEDRO COSTA: A RETROSPECTIVE
June 18-20, 23-25, 28 |  | For too long, the radical Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa has been one of cinema's hidden secrets. Acclaimed by artists as far-reaching as Jacques Rivette and Jeff Wall, and influenced by directors as diverse as John Ford, Ozu Yasujin, and Jean-Marie Straub, Costa's films are simply unforgettable.
With the recent critical acclaim for his epic Colossal Youth, his third film made in cooperation with a stock troupe of Lisbon slum dwellers who comprise Costa's adopted family (family being the central theme to each of his films), new prints of Costa's films have been struck, and a complete retrospective has arrived. There's no guarantee the films will return, so catch them while you can. |
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O SANGUE
June 20, 7:00; June 24, 9:45
Portugal 1989 // Director: Pedro Costa // 95 min // 35mm | |
"A prodigious debut film bursting with visual and narrative ideas, homages, and a desperate romanticism, Costa's O Sangue is a thrilling movie/movie for cinephiles. (It will remind you moment to moment of Night of the Hunter, Murnau, Bresson [that opening slap, straight out of Mouchette], Cocteau, Spirit of the Beehive, Boy Meets Girl.) Shot in splendid, inky black-and-white and lushly scored with Stravinsky, O Sangue is a moody nocturne-even in broad daylight, it seems to be the dead of night-set during Christmas and New Year's in a provincial riverside town. Two brothers, the young, frail Nino and the older Vicente, who is deeply in love with school teacher Clara Daničle "Only you can save me," he tells her in one of the film's most potent moments of cine-romanticism-are set upon by evil men (an uncle from Lisbon and two violent debt collectors) after their father disappears. At once a fairy tale, film noir, love story, and murder mystery, O Sangue announced a major new talent in European cinema."-James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario |
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CASA DE LAVA
June 18, 9:15; June 28, 7:00
Portugal/France/Germany 1995 // Director: Pedro Costa // 110 min // 35mm | |
Costa's fascination with the Cape Verdean immigrant population in Lisbon began with his second film, which takes place mostly on the island, a former Portuguese colony. Lećo (Isaach de Bankloe), a Cape Verdian man working on a construction site in Portugal, has an accident and ends up in a coma. A nurse, Mariana (Ines de Medeiros), ready for a change of scene, volunteers to accompany him home, but upon her arrival, nothing is as she expects. Mariana gets increasingly involved with the mysterious community, which seems to have been transported from Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie (Tourneur being another Costa fave). Shot with the stunning backdrop of Mount Fogo, the peak of Cape Verde, and an active volcano (reminiscent of Rossellini's Stromboli), Casa de Lava is a mysterious film marred by a notoriously difficult shoot, in many ways Costa's bźte noire, but integral to his filmography. Note also the first appearance of the poen that Ventura repeats in Colossal Youth, in part adapted from the last writings of Surrealist poet Robert Desnos. |
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WHERE LIES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE?
June 28, 9:15
France/Portugal 2001 // Director: Pedro Costa // 109 min// 35mm | |
One of the best films about filmmaking ever made, Costa's documentary on Straub-Huillet is also comedy of the highest order. "This film portrait presents an extraordinary look into the creative process of filmmaking through a case study of longtime collaborators Jean-Marie Straub and Daničle Huillet, who are carefully observed at work reediting their recent feature Sicilia!.Costa meticulously records the dialectic, argumentative mode the filmmakers use to reach decisions about each cut... Equally compelling is the documentation of Straub's close commentary on techniques from such diverse influences as Chaplin and Eisenstein. This remarkable documentary, an episode from the landmark series 'Cinema of our Time,' is a brilliant examination of the art of editing and a meditation on the aesthetic and political implications of film technique."-Harvard Film Archive
Preceded by
NE CHANGE RIEN // 2005 // 13 min
Costa shoots actress-turned-chanteuse Jeanne Balibar.
Followed by
6 BAGATELAS // 2001 // 18 min
Six additional moments of life with Jean-Marie and Daničle.
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|  | OSSOS
June 18, 7:30
Portugal/France/Denmark 1997 // Director: Pedro Costa // 94 min // 35mm | | As Jacques Rivette has said about Ossos, a film that outBressons Bresson, "I think it's magnificent, I think that Costa is genuinely great." In the slums on the outskirts of Lisbon, a child is born into extreme poverty. Tina, his young mother, tries to commit suicide in order to spare her son an impoverished life lost in advance. Saved by his father, he is shunted around the city's sordid streets; the child becomes the symbol of the fierce fight of love against death. Like Casa de Lava, Ossos was shot by Bresson's last cinematographer, Emmanuel Machuel, and features striking portraits of the leads, all plucked from the streets. Vanda Duarte, an immense presence of ambiguous sexuality, makes a memorable debut the baby's aunt, and her desire to continue filming, albeit in a less structured manner, spurred Costa to move to DV and find his calling. |
|  | IN VANDA'S ROOM
June 19, 7:30; June 23, 6:00
PORTUGAL/GERMANY/ITALY/SWITZERLAND 2000 Director: Pedro Costa // 178 min // 35mm | | Costa's superlative documentary-fiction hybrid In Vanda's Room gives viewers a close-up look at the lives of slum dwellers in Lisbon, as the saying goes, warts and all. "The film is the extraordinary portrait of Vanda, a young drug user from Fontainhas, the Cape Verdian quarter of Lisbon. Costa shot the film with a very small DV camera, allowing him to meet his subject face-to-face, and it's hard to say whether or not Vanda was even aware of the camera's presence. While initially intending to stay within the confinements of Vanda's room, the filmmaker finally decided to include the rest of the quarter and to complete the study of 'another way of living' with the inhabitants of Fontainhas. Thus, he creates a seemingly impossible equilibrium between what lies in front of and what lies behind the camera."-Viennale 2005 |
|  | COLOSSAL YOUTH
June 20, 8:50; June 23, 9:15; June 24, 7:00; June 25, 9:15
PORTUGAL/FRANCE/SWITZERLAND 2006 Director: Pedro Costa // 155 min // 35mm | | Acclaimed as the best film of 2006, Colossal Youth follows the adventures of Ventura, a new addition to Costa's makeshift studio system. Many of his friends, including Vanda (now with child), have been relocated from Fontaķnhas to an antiseptic housing block. Partly disabled from a workplace accident, Ventura is concerned his home won't have enough room for his "children": as he encounters them, he hears their deeply personal stories of struggle. The past is in danger, Costa is saying, and memory may be all that we have left. The image, however, is very much present. A luminous glow coats Ventura and his friends, revealing them as souls unable to find rest. Costa shot 320 hours of footage over 15 months to make this cryptic masterpiece of tremendous power. As usual, Costa presents a chorus of voices, but here the words are clearly well thought-out, creating a precision that is overwhelming. |
Screeners Available
More information on Pedro Costa and his films at http://www.cinemathequeontario.ca/programme.aspx?programmeId=149 |
| | | VIFC TICKETS AND INFO | Call the Starbucks Hotline 604.683.FILM (3456) for the latest info and listings. Tickets can be purchased in advance on-line at www.vifc.org or in person 30 minutes before showtime.
Double Bill Pricing!
The Vancity Theatre is offering double bills at a special price. At just $12 for two films ($10 for Students/Seniors and Bronze and above members), it's one of the cheapest (and still most comfy) seats in town!
Note: Double Bill pricing is not available for online sales. However, you can purchase your first ticket online at the regular price and get the double-bill price on the second ticket when you arrive at the box office. Double Bills are two consecutive films on the same day at the Vancity Theatre; rentals and Special Events are not included.
Adult tickets: $9.50 (Double Bill - $12)
Student/Senior $7.50 (Double Bill - $10)
Matinees $7.50
Bronze and above members receive a $2 discount on their tickets. (Double Bill - $10)
Silver and above members also receive a $2 discount for a guest ticket.
As a registered non-profit society, the VIFC screens films that have not always been seen by the BC Film Classification Board. Under BC law, any person wishing to see these unclassified films must belong to the VIFC Society and be 18 years or older. Valid for one year based on the date of purchase, the VIFC basic membership cost is $12, but includes the ticket price of your first film.
Please note that membership benefits and restrictions are valid for VIFC presentations only. They are not applicable to Vancity Theatre "Rental" presentations by other organizations.
For More Membership Information go to http://www.vifc.org/membership.html.Vancity Theatre is located at 1181 Seymour St. (at Davie) | |
