Cavalo Dinheiro

5 April, 2015 - 20:00
SPHINX 3

 

The starting point of this film was the stories told by Ventura. We were in the same place when the Carnation Revolution broke out in Portugal in 1974. I had the chance to be a young boy in a revolution and suddenly I could discover and experience music, politics, films, girls, all at the same time. I was happy, I was yelling in the streets, I was taking part in the occupations of schools and factories. I was 13 and it blinded me.

It took me four decades to realize that my friend, Ventura, was in the same places in tears and terrified, hiding with his comrades like him from immigration. He told me his memories of a time spent in what he calls his “prison,” where he fell into a long deep sleep. I can hardly say more, it’s all in the film, and the shooting was devastating, we shook a lot. Ventura is desperately trying to remember, but this is not necessarily the best thing. So I think we made this film to forget. Really to forget, and to be done with it.” (Pedro Costa)

Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money)

Pedro Costa
,
PT
,
2014
,
DCP
,
colour
,
115'

Ventura wanders into a purgatory of shattered memories and broken dreams. A knife fight in March, 1975, which left him with a gash in his head that required 96 stitches, and may have left his adversary dead; his employer refusing to let him work because he was deemed too young; a horse named Money, torn to pieces by vultures... The memories become explosive in the course of an elevator ride to the nether regions and back. Horse Money is a polyphonic tale of fragility and resilience in the light of failure, and of all those who struggle to carve themselves out in barren space, to reinforce their existence as something other than phantoms.