Portuguese Title: Cavalo Dinherio
In “Horse Money,” the Portuguese director Pedro Costa continues to explore the Cape Verdean immigrants, who are displaced from a Lisbon housing slum.
Though highly original, Costa is little known in the U.S., even in the art-house circuit, but he is a regular presence at major film festivals.
Horse Money world premiered at the Locarno Film Fest, then played at Toronto (where I saw it), and will be shown at the NY Film Fest in October
Unfolding as a journey that’s both real and surreal, the film depicts Ventura, Costa’s muse (who appeared in several of his films), wandering through the streets at night, haunted by the phantoms of his country’s turbulent past.
This fiercely beautiful tale is set in the soul space of Ventura, who’s engaged in a self-reckoning, a moving memorialization of lives that are in danger of being forgotten.
Like Costa’s previous works, “Horse Money” boasts an visually inventive formal style, put at the service of a political relevant tale, suffused with the kind of humanism seldom seen in current cinema.
See Our Review of Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth
Colossal Youth: Pedro Costa’s Tough Challenging Chronicle of Lisbon Ghetto
Running time: 103 minutes
