I ONLY REST IN THE STORM | O RISO E A FACA

PORTUGAL, BRAZIL, FRANCE, ROMANIA | 2025 | COLOR | DCP | 217’ | PORTUGUESE, CREOLE

A Portuguese environmentalist travels to Guinea-Bissau to study the impact of a major road construction project on the region. There he meets a man and a woman, forming a tense love triangle through which he realizes the unequal dynamic between the locals and the white population, as well as his own inability to understand and integrate into the unfamiliar world around him. At the same time, he tries to unravel the mystery of his predecessor's disappearance. Demonstrating great boldness and confidence in his uncompromising and grandiose artistic vision, the director makes use of naturalism and amateur actors, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy in the guilty world of non-governmental organizations and disguised modern colonialism. A voyeuristic, sensually charged look at a personal odyssey that raises fascinating questions about identity and morality under the trope of the ‘white savior’. An epic journey and a true cinematic revelation that places Pedro Pinho among the most important contemporary filmmakers. Th.K.

DIRECTOR: Pedro Pinho
SCREENWRITER: Pedro Pinho
DoP: Ivo Lopes Araújo
EDITORS: Pedro Pinho, Rita M. Pestana, Karen Akerman, Cláudia Rita Oliveira
PRINCIPAL CAST: Sérgio Coragem, Cleo Diára, Jonathan Guilherme, Jorge Quintino Biague, Renato Sztutman, Bruno Zhu, Kody McCree, Everton Dalman

PEDRO PINHO
Portuguese director, born in 1977 in Lisbon. In 2003, he graduated from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (ESTC), where he specialized in Cinematography and Direction. Between 2001 and 2002, he studied at the Louis Lumière University in Paris, where he directed a short fiction film entitled "Perto". In 2005, he participated in the Programa Criação e Criatividade Artística film studies program promoted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2006, he co-founded Patê Films. Since then, he has been working on fiction films and documentaries. In 2008, he also co-founded the production company TERRATREME.

FILMOGRAPHY
2025 I Only Rest in the Storm
2008 The Nothing Factory