Sombra Sombra

Mensagem do Realizador Director Statement
“Sombra” is a tale of hope, love and courage inspired by a true story. Imagine that the person you love the most suddenly is taken away from your life. Imagine 15 years gone by and you still do not know what happened to your son. In this film I pretend to tell the story of a mother who despite all the obstacles she finds, does not accept giving up fighting to find her son of 11 years old who disappeared. The film follows the story of this woman and her family in four different years: 1998, 2004, 2011 and 2013. As a filmmaker, I am attracted to stories that lend themselves to a philosophical exploration on the human condition. In my first feature film “Carga” I focused on a story of a girl named Viktoriya that was trapped in a human trafficking network. While researching for that film I started to think that it could be interesting to write in the future something not about the ones that are taken, but the one’ s that wait for them. What attracted me to write and direct the “Sombra” is the more fundamentally tragic question at the heart of my main character’s existence: what compels her to keep fighting year after year? What meaning does she find in this existence? In my childhood there was a really known portuguese case of a missing kid that became really well known because the way the mother managed to make everyone know her son’s story. I was really young, but I remember to see her on television and to see the pure love in her eyes when she talked about him, and the way despite more than 20 years had gone the same love remains in her eyes. Luckily I managed to know her and other mothers in the same situation and talk about everything they lived. That helped me and my main actress Ana Moreira to prepare the character. The choice of Ana Moreira, one of the most known and respected portuguese actresses, for the role has been really important because Ana is an amazing actress and had the ability to embody the character’s duality: a simultaneous fragility and strength. Isabel’’s story is like a mirage-like reflection of the ancient tale of Sisyphus, who so loved life and so struggled to prolong it, that the gods punished him by condemning him to work without reward, the eternal work of Isabel’s life is to find her son. Through the endless 15 years we follow her story and see how Isabel will deal with many crises. The rewards are few, but she doesn’t give up despite her wishes of having a normal life. The fact is that she doesn’t know how to live like a normal woman since all her life is dedicated to her son. As Isabel navigated her way through landmines of wavering public opinion, disbelieving police and immersing herself in the darkest world of paedophilia to find her son, she was joined by a group of supporters and detractors, but in the end she remains alone despite her husband and daughter are always trying to help her. The problem is that while they need to move on, Isabel needs to remain in the same place waiting for Pedro. My option to portray a family that keeps together, despite not being united, is to show that the impact of grief and bereavement has different effects for different people. Some cope with the loss of a loved one in a variety of ways, this also applies to the missing child cases. Even though it may be a very difficult period, some people actually find some kind of personal growth during the grieving process. There is absolutely no correct way in coping with loss, grief and bereavement. A person’s personality has a lot to do with the process of grieving coupled with the quality of the relationship with the person who has died. While talking with several mothers of portuguese missing children there’s one thing that all of them told me: most of the time they feel like drowning. That description of suffering puts in my mind this image of a secret place where my main character escapes when she is confronted with some particularly difficult moment. This place is her mind, and in the film appears represented like water where she is drowning and where, in the middle of despair and sometimes hope, she can talk directly to her son. This is a place where she has been stuck since that day in 1998, that’s why we always see her wearing the same clothes she used on the day her kid was taken. This is also a place from where she doesn’t want to escape because stopping suffering for Pedro means that she is failing him. The camera, though sometimes distant from the subject and other times really closer to them, is able to establish a delicate intimacy that I had in my mind since I wrote the script. As viewers we are given the space to meditate on a different experience of time; to sense things, to perceive a whole visual and acoustic universe, to be able to make the leap from our world to a more poetic, abstract level of Isabel’s universe. Perhaps this is the most personal project that I have ever directed, not only because of the deep immersion in the theme and the friendship I have created with some of the children’s relatives, but because it is a mother-inspired film and the reason I decided to study cinema in Amsterdam was precisely the death of my mother. When we lose someone who is literally a part of our heart, we continue to work through our grief and loss over time. I started to write and to direct regularly and purposefully because doing so was palliative as well as rewarding. I simply felt better, less sore. In the case of the mothers I have known most of them focused on the searching of their children, this is what keeps them alive. There’s many studies that say grief follows a method. It stays neatly in lines, clean, tame, strategic, but when a child disappears before a parent, there is nothing normal, neat, clean, or tame about that. For the rest of Isabel’s life, she’’ ll be missing the should-haves. Her son’s growing years. The moments he should be making her rip her hair out, then the sweet ones like the day he tells her he is going to propose. Or the day that he becomes a father. Isabel will never get those days. Grief will never be methodical or neat. One thing I’ve learned from the mothers I’ve known much further along in this journey than me, is that grief doesn’t end, neither hope. Out of a broken, beating heart comes endless love as it ebbs and flows through the constant cycles of grief. Sometimes gentle, sometimes heavy. The reminders are always there. The love is always there. After all, a mother never stops loving the child she carried. In my film the same happens and Isabel is the only character that lives in the shadow in a constant search for what can bring her to the light: to find her son.

Biografia do Realizador Director Biography

Bruno Gascon is a Portuguese director and screenwriter passionate about real stories focused on strong subjects. After living and studying in SAE Amsterdam, where he moved after a family tragedy that made him channel all his emotions into writing and cinema studies, Gascon returned to Portugal and started working with national TV as Director on social and cultural documentaries. In 2014, after his return, he wrote and directed the short film “Boy” that won several awards, including the 2015 Rising Star Award at the Canada International Film Festival. In 2015, “Vazio”, another short that he wrote and directed, was showcased at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival, and afterward traveled the world to several other festivals. In 2018, he wrote and directed “Carga”, his first feature film that has been in the top 5 of the most seen Portuguese movies of 2018. With good box office results in Portugal, good reviews, and sales in several countries the film has also been awarded in some international film festivals and also in Portugal. “Carga” is focused on human trafficking and the polish actress Michalina Olszanska is the main actress among some of the most known Portuguese actors. When he was directing “Carga” he was interested in the subject of missing children. That inspired him to speak with mothers from Portuguese missing children and to write “Shadow”, a powerful story about motherhood, love, courage, and hope based on true facts. Due to Covid-19, the film premiere was delayed until 2021. “Shadow” has received two awards at the Barcelona Sant Jordi Festival 2021 and was selected for the Shanghai International Film Festival 2021, Ischia Film Festival 2021, and more festivals that will soon be announced. “Shadow” will be distributed in Portugal by major NOS AUDIOVISUAIS and will be theatrically released by the end of 2021. Wide, the film sales agent has already sold the film to several different territories. Bruno Gascon believes that storytellers have the responsibility to promote critical thinking that’s why after “Shadow” he wrote, “The Outlaws”, his new feature, that he just finished shooting and where he creates a dystopian world that functions as a metaphorical reflection on how freedom of expression is disappearing and about the danger of the rise of dictatorial and extremist regimes in the world. The Portuguese director is currently monitoring “The Outlaws” post-production and developing new projects. Films: 2014 – Boy (short film) | 2015 – Vazio (short film) | 2018 – Carga (feature film) | 2021 – Sombra (feature film) | 2022 – Evadidos (feature film)

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