Casa de Lava

4 April, 2015 - 22:30
SPHINX 3

 

I had this idea – which was a stupid idea – of doing a remake of a film called I Walked With A Zombie by Jacques Tourneur. He was a great artisan. I decided to make something around my memory of that film; a film that has zombies, volcanoes, ghosts, crazy women, dogs, various strange nights, a lot of confusion and mystery. You will see that it’s not at all like I Walked With A Zombie; it’s something else. (...) If it weren’t for that film, I probably would be doing what my colleagues are doing. I’d be doing more commercial projects. Without Casa de Lava, there’d be no other films. It was the film that gave me the direction. They gave me the addresses and they just told me they’d never see me again. They’d say, “Take this message to my mother. Take this package of tobacco to my father.” They are all immigrants in this place. That’s how I found Fontaínhas. You’d probably never go there. It’s almost a destiny, the key to the other films.” (Pedro Costa)

 

HD Restored Version. Restoration supervised by Pedro Costa.

Casa de Lava (Down to Earth)

Pedro Costa
,
DE, FR, PT
,
1994
,
DCP
,
colour
,
105'

A film that was supposed to revamp another that had come before, but turned out to be the key to all those that were to follow. This was the film that led Pedro Costa to Cape Verde, which would ultimately lead him to Fontaínhas. It tells the story of Leão, who falls into a coma after an accident working on a construction site in Portugal, and Mariana, the nurse who accompanies him back to his home on the Cape Verde islands. It doesn’t take long before everyone in the film, not least its director, seems to lose all sense of direction, only to find one anew.