The Cause and the Shadow

Accounts on the emptiness left by a now closed and ruined mining industry, in which we met a series of participants and testimonies that address the social inequities, the laboral violence, the accidents at work and the daily life that evolved in this particular mining community of the northern inland of Portugal at a time in which extreme poverty was real.

Over the course of thirteen years, from 2007 to 2020, the film follows the changes in the social fabric of the city of Porto. Demolitions, evictions and resettlements that affect the Roma community of Bacelo, the inhabitants of Bairro do Aleixo and the sellers at Feira da Vandoma.

Inspired by the work of Bertolt Brecht and filmed in Porto's former industrial slaughterhouse, A Santa Joana dos Matadouros is a meta-cinematic essay about the labor market in times of economic crisis in Europe. The film explores the possibilities of cinema in its relationship with theater and brings together a cast of professional actors, amateurs, renowned artists from various disciplines, and a group of unemployed residents of Vale de Campanhã.

Two erratic journeys whose only relation is all that happens at the same time and in a limited radius. It is a film that refuses to judge, trying to tell two stories while refusing to be subjected to analogies between them.

A journey through the Portuguese Ongoing Revolutionary Process

Three voices debate the story of an uprising, while the camera searches for evidence in the backyard. The viewer is left to decide whether to see, believe or act.