VITALINA VARELA • CADERNO DE RODAGEM • PEDRO COSTA

VITALINA VARELA • CADERNO DE RODAGEM • PEDRO COSTA • 2021 Pierre von Kleist 62 pgs • Editing by André Príncipe, José Pedro Cortes & Pedro Costa • All photography’s in this book were done between 2017 and 2019 in Sacavém, Cova da Moura, Quinta do Lage, Bairro 6 de Maio and Figureira das Naus (Cape Verde), while shooting Vitalina Varela, a film directed by Pedro Costa and produced by OPTEC • Pre-press: Blues Photography Studio, Lisbon • Printing: Wico Art Books, Netherlands  • Livro disponível na Linha de Sombra • Cinemateca Portuguesa • Lançamento no dia 25 de Setembro de 2021, na esplanada da Cinemateca, rubrica com a Linha de Sombra, com projeção do filme VITALINA VARELA com a presença dos realizadores Pedro Costa e Billy Woodberry, dos editores André Princípe e José Pedro Cortes e de José Manuel Costa, Director da CP-MC◼︎

Vitalina Varela had spent all her life working the land in the mountains of the Island of Santiago, Cape Verde. She was the youngest of eight brothers and sisters and she married her first love, Joaquim, a boy from the same village, Figueira das Naus. Like most Cape Verdean young men, Joaquim left his country in 1977, with the promise of work as bricklayer. (…) He dies on June 23rd, 2013 and is buried on the 27th. Vitalina arrives in Portugal on the 30th. Nobody knows her in the neighborhood, no one comforts her, everyone turns a suspicious eye. Vitalina spends countless days and nights locked in Joaquim’s shack. She barely survives the pain and the nightmares. A few months pass and she she manages to find one or two jobs as a cleaning lady. In a high society mansion they fire her without pay. She’s hired to clean the shops in a giant mall. She gets 5€ an hour. One morning there’s a knock on her door. She fears the police of immigration officials. It was Pedro Costa searching for a house to shoot a scene for the film HORSE MONEY.

Vitalina Varela, the facts