Paradise City Sales recently picked up Pedro Pinho’s new film, I Only Rest In The Storm. Charlap-Haims’ moving film takes on neocolonialism, climate anxiety, and apathy through the lens of identity. Produced by Portugal’s Uma Pedra no Sapato, the feature is already creating some buzz. They are the producers behind the best director prize winner Miguel Gomes at Cannes 2024, with their award-winning film, Grand Tour.
Many of these international partners helped co-produce the film. Among the participants are Terratreme Filmes from Portugal, Still Moving from France, Bubbles Project from Brazil, and deFilm from Romania. This collaboration across borders reflects the film’s central themes, as it follows an environmental engineer who travels to a West African metropolis to work on a road project for a non-governmental organization (NGO). The story weaves an intimate portrait of both individual and community resilience within the context of a planet facing myriad environmental challenges.
A Talented Cast
The film features a diverse cast led by Sérgio Coragem and Cleo Diára, both seasoned actors in their respective fields. Newcomer Jonathan Guilherme joins them, making some exciting contributions as an emerging talent on the project. Their performances will bring these intricacies and contradictions to life. See them deftly wrangle with the profound complexities of identity and belonging in the wake of a massively shifting landscape.
This short but powerful comment goes on to illustrate Pinho’s devotion to confronting dramatic socio-political issues through the medium of film.
“I wanted to further develop the experiment initiated with The Nothing Factory by placing speech at the center of a collective wound – the neo-colonial border.”
Beyond neocolonialism, “I Only Rest In The Storm” responds to the urgent concerns of climate anxiety unfolding in our current reality. The roving environmental engineer personally engages with communities around the state. While she works to solve their problems, the film illustrates the profound ways that global crises are related. It invites audiences to reflect on their roles in these dynamics and how identity shapes responses to such pressing concerns.
Themes of Climate Anxiety and Neocolonialism
This statement underscores the film’s artistic ambitions and its potential impact on viewers’ understanding of global issues.
Paradise City Sales describes the film as:
“a visually stunning and intellectually rich odyssey that questions the complexity of the dynamics between the North and the South.”
This statement underscores the film’s artistic ambitions and its potential impact on viewers’ understanding of global issues.