Vitalina’s (in)visibility: contemporary Portugal and the cinema of human mobility

ABSTRACT Critically acclaimed in film festivals around the world, Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela was a strong contender in the 2019 race for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award. At the time, many suggested the film was not only an exquisite work of art, but also relevant for debates about immigration and racism. This is a fruitful analytical angle, which I propose to examine in relation to the critical reception of Pedro Costa’s work, the current socio-political context in Portugal, and the notion of cinema of human mobility. This article puts forward a close textual reading of the film’s style grounded in historical, political and social matters. I suggest that the film tells Vitalina’s story, but only briefly; shows her decadent living conditions, but only partially; and hears her lament, but only faintly, and I argue Vitalina Varela is a particularly rich case study to illustrate important debates about the relationship between politics and aesthetics in contemporary transnational cinema.