On Saturday, the PVD World Music Institute screened the Cape Verdean film “Pirinha” at the Providence Public Library as part of the sixth annual African Film and Art Festival.
Written and directed by Natasha Craveiro, “Pirinha” depicts an unnamed young Cape Verdean woman (Luciény Kaabral) searching for the truth about her past. She walks hand in hand with her younger self (Paola Rodrigues), reliving traumas and memories against a thickly wooded landscape.
The film’s sparse dialogue is written in Portuguese. Its metaphors are poignant, if at times heavy-handed. To move forward, the main character must encounter the demons of her childhood, as well as a deeper, darker evil: The memories of her deceased grandmother and a traumatizing incident of sexual assault.
The film is composed of long, quiet and heartfelt moments. A handheld camera carefully tracks the hands of the main character’s grandmother (Vicência Delgado) as she strains vegetables, hangs laundry, washes dishes and bakes cake. Every detail is attended to: There is a slight shake in the grandmother’s hands, and her humming is out of tune. These shots are a love letter to domestic care and familial love. Gratitude emanates from the screen.
The most beautiful moment of the film is when the woman and her younger self come face-to-face with Katxorona (Rosy Timas) and Gongon Nhanha (Marya Almeida) — two Cape Verdean folkloric figures who haunted the woman’s dreams. Craveiro’s representation of folklore is delivered with immense care. The two creatures move in choreographed patterns, uncanny and dreamlike. In an unexpected moment of goodwill and tenderness, Katxorona and Gongon Nhanha offer the main character pirinhas — the Cape Verdean sweet that gives the film its name.
All of the actors in “Pirinha” are incredibly skilled in their physicality. As the young woman, Kaabral embodies fits of trauma and mortality by contorting her body and breath in a manner that is realistic, visceral and gripping. With Rodrigues’s light movements, the two characters’ journey is a beautiful image. They are believable as two halves of the same person.
Though not a blockbuster, “Pirinha” is an important and enduring work and a love letter to Cape Verde. In addition to its Cape Verdean representation, “Pirinha” is a testament to care, both between members of a family and between past and present selves. By screening this film, the African Film and Art Festival highlights the art and folklore of a country whose emigrants and culture have intimately shaped Providence.
