23/11/2006

In the same week that British actor Daniel Craig is invading local screens with a reinvented and more vulnerable version of James Bond in the US/UK/Czech/German co-production Casino Royale (distributed by Columbia Tristar Pictures), two other European titles offer an alternative to the adventures of the mythical 007 agent.

Pedro Costa's latest film Colossal Youth [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which screened in competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival (see news), is premiering in five theatres in Lisbon, Amadora, Setúbal, Porto and Coimbra.

Produced and distributed by Contracosta, the film stars Ventura, Vanda Duarte, António Semedo and other residents of Lisbon’s Fontainhas neighbourhood, a place that already served as the background of Costa's previously films Ossos and No quarto de Vanda. This time, the director focuses on the radical transformations the locals are forced to undergo as they prepare to move into new housing after the demolition of their old houses.

This period is filmed from the point of view of Ventura, an elderly African immigrant for whom a new beginning means the end of an solidarity in the decadent environment. After Portugal, Colossal Youth will come out in France, Holland, South Korea and Japan.

Also under transformation is post-war Sarajevo, where Jasmila Zbanic set the plot of her praised directorial debut Grbavica [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Barbara Albert
interview: Jasmila Zbanic
film profile], a picture of a partly destroyed city, which can be read as metaphor for the psychological damage of its inhabitants, women in particular, who have not yet overcome war traumas. Rather than making a film with typical bloody war scenes, Zbanic captured the devastating consequences of the war after the war.

The film, which won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, is being released by Vitória Films. Cineuropa will soon devote a Film Focus to Grbavica.

The non-European releases of the week are Infamous, distributed by Castello Lopes, and Thank You for Smoking, distributed by Lusomundo.