AMERICA

Portuguese director Joan Nuno Pinto made his debut with a multinational production (Spain-Portugal-Brazil-Russia) that follows the path of militant social cinema pioneered by the Dardenne brothers from Belgium. Eastern European immigrants, some pursued by criminal organizations, coexist in the seedy underground world of Lisbon with local criminals and an unscrupulous Spanish female con artist. Among them, a peculiar microcosm emerges where the only thing that matters is getting by. The cast is as international as the production, starring Russian actress Chulman Khamatova, Spanish actress María Barranco, and Portuguese actor Fernando Luís.

Liza is a young Russian immigrant married to Vitor, a Portuguese man. He is in fact a petty crook who lives off scams and tricking old ladies. Their son, Mauro, is a strange child who has decided not to speak. Besides her domestic chores, Liza has to take care of Vitor’s grandmother, a bed-ridden hundred-years-old lady who rejects any care that is given to her. Fernanda, Vitor’s Spanish ex-wife, taking advantage of the wave of illegal immigrants into Portugal, turns up with a proposal for a false passports business. From then on, and to Liza’s great despair, her house becomes a halfway home for countless immigrants of different nationalities and races, all looking for a better future. One of them is Andrei, a young Ukrainian orthopaedist who is wanted by the Russian mafia. Andrei ends up falling in love with Liza, who sees in him the opportunity to get out of her desperate life. But things are not as simple as that…