As a young adult, Alex thinks back on his difficult childhood, characterised by his absent father, Pedro, a legionnaire caught up in attempting to defend imperial Portugal’s colonial interests in Africa who returns as a broken individual. After spending months in hiding, Pedro is finally discovered by his wife Manuela, who, in his absence, has begun running a little bar with her friend Barbara, all while trying her best to raise their child right somehow. The two former lovers live in parallel worlds and fail to build a new relationship to one another.

Villaverde’s celebrated debut is a poetic film about the smouldering ubiquity of repressed trauma, a nation’s isolation under dictatorship and the inability of its inhabitants to speak to one another. Featuring Vincent Gallo (BUFFALO ’66) and Maria de Medeiros (PULP FICTION).

Teresa Villaverde was born in Lisbon/Portugal in 1966. In the 80s she worked as an actress, co-author and co-director in the Theater Group of the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon. She participated as an actress in the film À FLOR DO MAR, by João César Monteiro and worked in the set of Paulo Rocha’s DESEJADO as continuity supervisor. In the early 90s she began working as a director, always writing her own scripts. All her films had world premieres at A festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin. Furthermore, she was appointed to the juries at numerous film festivals.

Filmography (selection): 1991 A IDADE MAIOR, 1994 TRÊS IRMÃOS, 1996 O AMOR NÃO ME ENGANA, 1998 OS MUTANTES, 2003 A FAVOR DA CLARIDADE, 2006 TRANSE, 2017 COLO, 2018 GALILEO’S THERMOMETER, 2019 SIX PORTRAITS OF PAIN