2720

After spending six years and five days in prison, Jyzone is finally out. On the way to his first day at work, the insalubrious streets reveal deep inequalities, but they still have a very specific odour: that of freedom. Each reunion is like an initial, joyful encounter, to the point that Jyzone risks being late and dangerously veering back towards his past. Meanwhile, Camilia is looking for her brother. Their paths and fates will intertwine. Every encounter is a pretext to follow another character and a new story, and for the skilful camera to weave a choreographic and poetic portrait of the violent neighbourhood of Reboleira in Lisbon. For Basil Da Cunha, a Swiss director of Portuguese origin whose work has been presented at Cannes, the film is an opportunity “to live a place and its time, but also to discover the richness of each of the characters that we meet on our path”. A presentation of a place that is also “a portrait where fiction and reality cohabit in a strangely poetic way”, while colliding with the tragic outcome of a life lived outside of the law, and the violent police raids that ring out through the film.

Charlotte Serrand