Ossos
| Ossos | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Pedro Costa |
| Produced by | Paulo Branco |
| Written by | Pedro Costa |
| Starring |
Vanda Duarte Nuno Vaz Mariya Lipkina Isabel Ruth Inês de Medeiros |
| Cinematography | Emmanuel Machuel |
| Edited by | Jackie Bastide |
Release dates | 2 September 1997 (Venice Film Festival) |
Running time | 98 min. |
| Country | Portugal |
| Language | Portuguese |
Ossos (English: "Bones") is a 1997 Portuguese film directed by Pedro Costa.
The film was shot in "Estrela d'Africa", Fontainhas district of Lisbon, where disadvantaged dwellers and immigrants from former Portuguese colonies in Africa live desperate lives.
The story's focus is on a young girl and her lover who become parents of an unwanted baby. Their ambiguous tendencies keep this downbeat story moving around the shanty town. The director's ascetic style and this district's faded cityscape emphasize the depressing tone of the film.
This drama film with some documentary elements made Pedro Costa acclaimed internationally. It was nominated for Golden Lion prize at the Venice International Film Festival in 1997.
He dealt with this shanty district (totally defunct nowaday) further after Ossos. The district's depression itself was mainly featured in his next film No Quarto da Vanda (In Vanda's Room).
External links
- Ossos at the Internet Movie Database
- Ossos at AllMovie
- Podcast with Pedro Costa (on the "Letters from Fontainhas" Criterion DVD set, 2010), GreenCine Daily
- Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy: Rooms for the Living and the Dead by Cyril Neyrat
- Conversation between Pedro Costa and Jean-Pierre Gorin