Northwest Film Forum brings to Seattle the films of enigmatic Portugese director Pedro Costa in this 6 film, two
week series. To be honest, I know and have seen very little of his cinema. What I am familiar with, has resonated
with my perception of such unlike-one-another filmmakers as Bresson, Jia Zhang-Ke, Bela Tarr and even, in the
case of the later films, the extended-duration documentaries of Frederick Wiseman. The highlight of this series
being the highly critically lauded, (and as yet unscreened in the northwest ) "Colossal Youth", which I have been
anticipating since the lengthy review and article on his work that appeared in Film Comment earlier this year.
Link to NWFF "Still Life: The Films of Pedro Costa" site
From the Northwest Film Forum:
"Portuguese director Pedro Costa has long been recognized as a major auteur in Europe and Asia, and has
been praised by artists as far-reaching as Jacques Rivette and Jeff Wall, but is often overlooked in North
American film circles. Northwest Film Forum is thrilled to host this long overdue complete retrospective,
which includes his latest feature COLOSSAL YOUTH, one of the best-reviewed films of the year. The series
acts as primer and corrective, introduction and redress, advocating Costa’s unique and unforgettable cinema.
Costa does away with conventional boundaries between fiction and documentary, masterfully shooting non-actors
who share the drug problems and dire straits of the “characters” they play. Influenced by directors as diverse as
John Ford, Ozu Yasujin, and Jean-Marie Straub, Costa’s fragmented narratives show us life in the most desperate
conditions. These six feature films and two shorts reveal Costa as one of the world’s great filmmakers."
