ROSA DE AREIA

António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro’s final feature is their most cosmic endeavor, a feature that brings together science, art, metaphysics and magic. ROSA DE AREIA draws on a diverse series of texts, from the centuries-old Atharva Veda to Michel de Montaigne and Carl Sagan, to reflect on the human condition from ancient times to the present – as symbolised by the sand-rose, a geological formation whose survival depends on the combined action of water, wind and sand. At the same time, the film is also directly concerned with the physical reality of the Trás-os-Montes region of north-east Portugal. Starting from ‘a practical imagination’, attributed to the people of the region, Reis and Cordeiro work with materials and textures that echo the labours of these rural communities – while also fabulating in collaboration with them.

In Reis’s words: “A film made of matter. Matter in constant evolvement. Natural wind becomes tuba wind, actresses’ dresses act side by side with clouds, three-dimensions are defeated by two-dimensions, sequence shots are put to rest by still shots, music is silence and colour is modulated, the purest of lights becomes a floating and diffuse one. ROSA DE AREIA is but a torrent: it disappears in a slow rotation, a slow translation, moved by the rebellious energy of cinematographic forms.”

“A work of sensuous abstraction performed in the open air of Trás-os-Montes, as elusive and exquisite as the ‘desert rose’ of its title.” - Edward McCarry