SYNOPSIS: The first film in Pedro Costa’s transformative trilogy about Fontainhas, an impoverished quarter of Lisbon, Ossos is a tale of young lives torn apart by desperation. After a suicidal teenage girl gives birth, she misguidedly entrusts her baby’s safety to the troubled, deadbeat father, whose violent actions take the viewer on a tour of the foreboding, crumbling shantytown in which they live. With its reserved, shadowy cinematography by Emmanuel Machuel (who collaborated with Bresson on L’argent), Ossos is a haunting look at a devastated community.
| Clotilde | Vanda Duarte |
| The father | Nuno Vaz |
| Tina | Maria Lipkina |
| Eduarda | Isabel Ruth |
| Whore | Inês Medeiros |
| Clotilde's husband | Miguel Sermão |
| Nurse | Berta Susana Teixeira |
| Director | Pedro Costa |
| Writer | Pedro Costa |
| Producer | Paolo Branco |
| Cinematography | Emmanuel Machuel |
| Costume design | Isabel Favila |
| Production design | Zé Branco |
| Sound | Henri Maikoff and Gérard Rousseau |
| Editing | Jackie Bastide |
DIRECTOR-APPROVED DVD SPECIAL EDITION:
By March 30, 2010
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 Read more »
April 05, 2010
Criterion’s release in a DVD box set of the trilogy Letters from Fontainhas is making director Pedro Costa’s name familiar to a wider audience than ever before. These days, you can learn a lot Read more »
April 09, 2010
Criterion’s release last week of the four-DVD box set Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa—featuring Ossos, In Vanda’s Room, and Colossal Youth, acclaimed Portuguese dramas Read more »
