Amor Fati – Films – Visions du Réel

Cláudia Varejão
Portugal, Switzerland, France | 2020 | 102 min
Languages : Portuguese, Armenian
Subtitles : English, French

Two twin sisters, a master and his dog, lovers who look like each other… All these combinations are possible in the simultaneously poetic and hyper-realistic world of Cláudia Varejão. Here, love comes in all shapes and sizes, orchestrating a choreography of visual resemblances, while also calling into question the concept of the couple in today’s society.

"Amor Fati" — Latin for "embrace your fate" — is the title of Cláudia Varejão’s third feature film, an elegant exploration of pairs in which each being or thing seems to exist only in relation to the other: twin sisters, a rider and his horse, a master and his dog, lovers who appear to form a single entity. In these visually exquisite portraits, Varejão captures not just gestures and relationships, but something far deeper — using cinema as a space that transcends the observation of bodies and their physical similarities. She reveals the ineffable force at work in that synaptic space where connection takes root, a mysterious energy that binds beings together. In doing so, she sketches a portrait of a country in all its social and cultural diversity.

Echoing the Platonic idea that we are but one half of a whole, forever seeking our missing part, Amor Fati quietly and luminously captures those rare moments when two destined halves meet — through friendship, intimacy, or love — and become one.

Aurélien Marsais

Kora, 2024
Wolf and Dog , 2022
Ø Island, 2020
The Art of Delusion, 2020
Amor Fati, 2020
Ama-San, 2016
In the Darkness of the Theater I Take Off my Shoes, 2016
Sowing Time, 2015
Morning Light, 2011
Cold Day, 2009
Weekend, 2007
Wanting, 2004