“Grito”, by Luís Costa, one of the winning projects of Filmaporto’s Pascaud Grant, has finished shooting and is currently in post-production.
The short film received one of five grants, worth €20,000 each, offered this year by Filmaporto to encourage film production in Porto. For the director, this support allowed the project to remain faithful to the original idea: “If it wasn’t for this funding, the film would probably have to be something else. We often say that we don’t make the film we want, we make the film we can, but I feel lucky that this project is exactly what I want”, explains Luís Costa.
The short film was shot in Porto and featured a professional team mostly from the city, that included Miguel da Santa, Tiago Carvalho (Directors of Photography) and André Guiomar (Assistant Director) – with whom Luís Costa founded, in 2019, the Porto production company Olhar de Ulisses – Margarida Assis (Actor Direction and Script), Mafalda Rebelo (Production), Júlio Alves, Ricardo Preto (Art Directors), Sérgio Silva (Sound Director) and Susana Abreu (Costumes).
“Grito” is inspired by Raul Nunes’ homonymous novel and portrays trauma shared by two sisters. During a sleepless night, Emilia is transported to a traumatizing event from her sister Francelina’s past. In these flashbacks, she revisits her childhood home, her parents, and the dock where she spent her time. These memories eventually lead her to visit Francelina, who is confined to an asylum. “I felt it would be beautiful to see that story and those characters turned into a film”, says Luís Costa. “The book is very fragmented and even a little difficult to follow, so it might seem more difficult than ideal, but I think that’s what attracted me”, adds the director. “I want people to feel what I felt when I read the book.”
Still without a premiere date, “Grito” should be completed in the summer of 2022 and will enter the festival circuit.
About his upcoming works, Luís Costa reveals that he intends to film a documentary about Portugal’s key figure, actor António Pedro and adapt a Portuguese novel.
