After premiering The Nothing Factory in the Directors’ Fortnight section back in 2017, Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Pinho returns to Cannes this time with I Only Rest In The Storm (O riso e a faca) over in the Un Certain Regard section. As of late, Pinho has been wearing the producer’s hat – as co-founder of the production company Terratreme Filmes – a prod company that focuses on socially engaged cinema (often dipping into themes of on labor, capitalism, and social struggles) and that blends fiction with the docu form.
In the exclusive clip for I Only Rest In The Storm (O riso e a faca) below, playing to from the song (from Bahia, Brazilian born Tom Zé – 60s singer-songwriter instrumentalist part of the Tropicália movement of 1960s) from which the film borrows its name, we find travel buddies enjoying what could be a moment of reprieve. This is about Sergio, who travels to a metropolis in West Africa to work for an NGO as an environmental engineer on a road project between the desert and the forest. There, he becomes entangled in an intimate yet unbalanced relationship with two inhabitants of the city, Diára and Gui. As neo-colonial dynamics among the expatriate community unravel, this fragile bond becomes his only refuge from an impending collapse into solitude or barbarism.
I Only Rest In The Storm will have its world premiere screening on Saturday, May 17th at the Debussy.
