In Vanda's Room

In Vanda's Room (No Quarto da Vanda, 2001) — watch online on iFILM — is a Portuguese documentary drama directed by Pedro Costa, filmed over several years in the Fontainhas neighbourhood of Lisbon as the district was being demolished.

Costa worked alone with a digital camera, sitting for long hours inside the same rooms as his subjects — mostly Cape Verdean immigrants, among them Vanda Duarte, who is the film's center. Her heroin addiction and the poverty around her are neither explained nor dramatized. Costa just stays. At 170 minutes, the film demands patience. What it gives back is a kind of presence rare in documentary cinema. Stream In Vanda's Room online on iFILM.