On a remote volcanic island, where everyone wants to leave, little Nana learns, between tides, to want to stay.
“Mother, within us, broken pieces are glued together with gold,” says the protagonist Nana, anchored in the future, to her mother in the time just before her birth and before departing the island, leaving her in the care of her grandmother. Denise Fernandes’ debut feature film impresses with the serenity and empathy with which it weaves a visual poem in the form of a film, both through its dramaturgy and the sequence of imagery it creates. It’s an evocative journey, with elements of magical realism, exploring notions of identity and belonging as it follows the protagonist’s path from childhood to young adolescence on the island of Fogo, in Cape Verde. She faces her mother’s abandonment, supported by a community, with melancholy but without falling into any trauma moralism. The tone is always affectionate, focused on giving new meaning to the broken pieces. Several family members or acquaintances leave that place, while she, in contrast to the dominant narrative, achieves full emancipation—by choosing to stay. (Susana Santos Rodrigues)
