Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master List
Spoiler-free premise
Vanda Duarte and neighbors live through heroin addiction and demolition as Lisbon's Fontainhas district disappears around their rooms.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
In Lisbon's Fontainhas district, Vanda Duarte and her sister Zita spend long hours talking and using heroin in a dark bedroom. Neighbors circulate, workers demolish houses, and the community's routines persist amid addiction, illness, displacement, and the literal removal of its streets.
Why it belongs
Costa gives Vanda, her neighbors, and their threatened rooms grave pictorial presence without using poverty as spectacle.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Doorways, smoke, spoons, rubble, coughing, offscreen machinery, whispered exchanges, and naturally lit interiors transform a consumer video camera into an instrument of rigorous attention; Vanda Duarte's speech determines the film's time and intimacy.
Major award wins
No verified wins in this six-institution crosswalk.
Awards are reference metadata only · zero points in 40/40/20
Good for
Film Club
Descriptive guidance derived from rating, genre, runtime, mood, and GCML scores.
Institutional reference ranks
Sight & Sound243IMDb Top 250—AFI 100—
Reference metadata only · not part of the 40/40/20 score
Great Cinema Master List scores
Greatness9.0
Engagement5.0
Ease2.0
Portuguese · Not Rated Narrative Feature Mood: Extreme Commitment
