Pedro Costa

In Vanda’s Room

In Vanda’s Room

For the extraordinarily beautiful second film in his Fontainhas trilogy, Pedro Costa jettisoned his earlier films’ larger crews to burrow even deeper into the Lisbon ghetto and the lives of its desperate inhabitants. With the intimate feel of a documentary and the texture of a Vermeer painting, In Vanda’s Room takes an unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but is centered around the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte. Costa presents the daily routines of Vanda and her neighbors with disarming matter-of-factness, and through his camera, individuals whom many would deem disposable become vivid and vital. This was Costa’s first use of digital video, and the evocative images he created remain some of the medium’s most astonishing.

Film Info

  • Portugal
  • 2000
  • 171 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • Portuguese
  • Spine #510

DIRECTOR-APPROVED DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Film remastered from the digital camera original, under the supervision of director Pedro Costa
  • New audio commentary featuring Costa in conversation with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Gallery of photos by Richard Dumas
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation

Available In

Collector's Set

Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa

Letters from Fontainhas

DVD Box Set

4 Discs

$63.96

DIRECTOR-APPROVED DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Film remastered from the digital camera original, under the supervision of director Pedro Costa
  • New audio commentary featuring Costa in conversation with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Gallery of photos by Richard Dumas
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
In Vanda’s Room
Cast
Lena Duarte
Vanda Duarte
Zita Duarte
Pedro Lanban
António 'Pango' Semedo
Paulo Nunes
Paulo Jorge Gonçalves
Manuel Gomes Miranda
Evangelina Nelas
Fernando Paixão
Diogo Miranda
Credits
Director
Pedro Costa
Producer
Karl Baumgartner
Producer
Andres Pfäffli / Elda Guidinetti
Producer
Francisco Villa-Lobos
Cinematography
Pedro Costa
Editing
Dominique Auvray
Sound
Philippe Morel
Sound
Mathieu Imbert
Sound
Stephan Konken

Current

Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy: Rooms for the Living and the Dead
Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy: Rooms for the Living and the Dead
The work of Pedro Costa has progressed in slow, measured steps, but each step has been a giant leap. His slowness is both the condition and the consequence of ethical standards he shares with precious few directors of his generation. This is no lo…

By Cyril Neyrat