Sergio (Sérgio Coragem), a Portuguese environmental engineer, travels to Guinea-Bissau to conduct an impact report for a road-building project linking the jungle to the desert. He meets locals who become tentative friends and lovers. Tensions soon arise within these new, ambiguous relationships, and Sergio starts to see the dissonance between European fantasy and the historical, political, and post-colonial consequences at play surrounding his mission. The film’s title, I Only Rest in the Storm (O Riso e a Faca), comes from a song about contradiction, and the film explores the relationship between desire and violence. Pedro Pinho’s camera captures moments in a complex but also loose and fluid way, with several very intimate and powerful sexual scenes. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, where Cleo Diára won the Best Actress award.

KAZIK RADWANSKI