I Only Rest in the Storm

With his feature debut “The Nothing Factory”, the Portuguese director Pedro Pinho already showed that he wants to think cinema anew: neorealism met post-Marxist musical there. With “I Only Rest in the Storm”, his new work of almost four hours, he carries that ambition forward.

Its central figure is Sérgio, a Portuguese researcher travelling to Guinea-Bissau on behalf of a development organisation. What begins as a sober field study soon catapults him into a web of desire, power and memory. Sérgio meets the enigmatic Diára (Cleo Diára, awarded a prize at Cannes), who walks the streets in a conspicuous blonde wig. Through her he finds his way into a queer community in which Guilherme, a Brazilian returnee, is likewise searching for his roots. Between them a dialogue unfolds about belonging, colonial continuities, and the question of whether history can ever be overcome.

Pinho tells this as a hypnotic experience: with long takes that give body and landscape equal weight, with a camera that loses itself in the movements of its characters, and with a structure that lets itself drift rather than follow a clear line. “I Only Rest in the Storm” comes together as an intimate portrait of the search for belonging — and as a visually demanding meditation on Africa as a space for political as well as poetic redesign.