Sharp suits, tight wigs and always within arm’s reach of a cigarette: this is the retro-vintage vibe of Ivo M Ferreira’s political thriller Projecto Global, which has enjoyed its world premiere in the Big Screen Competition of International Film Festival Rotterdam. Projecto Global is Ferreira’s fictionalised depiction of the Forças Populares 25 de Abril (lit. “April 25 Popular Forces”, or FP-25), the militant wing of the eponymous political programme. Labelled as a terrorist group, FP-25 operated in Portugal in the 1980s, dissatisfied with the capitalist-driven political system of “bourgeois democracy” after the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974.

Viewers are tossed into this world with little to no context, which makes the learning curve more difficult for those unfamiliar with the political shifts in Portugal’s recent history. However, they’re given nearly two-and-a-half hours to catch up, during which time the movie plays out less like a slow-burn and more like a look into the everyday lives of this group, where death is commonplace and nothing is promised. Although the film is arguably too long, Projecto Global grows more compelling as it goes on, as FP-25 comrades are systematically eliminated over the running time. An offhanded mention of Portugal having its first colour television transmissions reminds us of the changes still taking place during this period.

The ensemble cast is led by a magnetic Jani Zhao as FP-25 member and theatre actress Rosa, who is flanked by the additional FP-25 crew of ex-artillery officer Jaime (Rodrigo Tomás), Queiroz (Isac Graça, also seen at IFFR in Providence and the Guitar [+leggi anche:
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scheda film]), Balela (João Catarré) and Amanuense (Gonçalo Waddington). Zhao fantastically evokes Maggie Cheung in a cross between her roles in In the Mood for Love and Irma Vep, hiding under sunglasses, wigs and hats with a touch of subtle glamour. The son of Zhao and director Ferreira (Leo Zhao Ferreira) plays the young son of Rosa and her former lover Marlow (José Pimentão), a police officer torn between his duties and his emotions.

Droning strings underscore scenes of the militants singing songs and loading weapons, matching the slowness of the film’s rhythm: rousing, but never impulsive. Cinematographer Vasco Viana (who also lensed the Portuguese selection in Rotterdam’s Big Screen Competition last year, Our Father – The Last Days of a Dictator [+leggi anche:
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intervista: José Filipe Costa
scheda film]) is not afraid to roam freely with his camera, including making frequent use of different speeds of zooms to dial us in and out of the action, never leaving us bored.

While Projecto Global will undoubtedly attract easy comparisons to One Battle After Another, the revolutionary context is where the connections end. Ferreira’s work is more like The Secret Agent [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] with its throwback style, political nuance and subtle attentiveness to the interpersonal. Here, reality is less clear-cut, and politics unfolds in real time, rather than through bold proclamations and speeches. Ferreira has constructed a film in which viewers and members of FP-25 go on journeys inverse to each other: the former move from confusion to understanding of the cause, while the latter move from comprehension to disillusionment by its bitter end.

As time seems to pass by without note, a prison escape in an ice-cream van reminds us of the casual mundanity of a people’s revolution, with one key difference in the quotidian. Rosa, Jaime, Queiroz and the others understand the fatality embedded in their jobs: that death is inevitable.

Projecto Global is a production by Portugal’s O Som e a Fúria and Luxembourg’s Tarantula. The Match Factory has the rights to the film’s world sales.