20th Annual European Union Film Festival
Screening Dates
  • November 28, 2017 6:30
Portugal

“Martins shows that he has fully taken on board the lessons learned from masters Wim Wenders, Pedro Costa, and Manoel de Oliveira.”

Camillo de Marco, Cineuropa

The gritty third feature from Portuguese writer-director Marco Martins (Alice, How to Draw a Perfect Circle) is a brooding, bare-knuckled drama that holds a sobering mirror to Portugal’s recent economic hardships. Taciturn former boxer Jorge (Nuno Lopes) is barely scraping by, like many after the 2011 crash. At risk of losing his family without a steady pay cheque—his wife wants to return to her native Brazil with their son, whom he adores—a desperate Jorge takes a job as a debt collector, meant to offer muscle to the agency’s lowlife, door-knocking goons. When he refuses to rough up a local businessman who’s defaulted on his loans, the onetime pugilist, now in deep with the sharks, must deal with consequences.