“Even while there are only vague surviving memories of the determinant events from childhood, some conflicts continue to fester, formerly small issues, which I still today relive as an adult (…) tumultuous issues that continue to go unanswered: the loss of somebody, the lack of future definition and the indifference of nature towards the existence of all such anxieties. There are mysteries that are permanent.” This was the terrain, in which there is neither truth nor lie, that Diogo Salgado sought to capture with his tripod and camera in the short film that he entitled Noite Turva (Blurred Night).

Produce with support from the New Creatives in Cinema program of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the short film by Diogo Salgado is going to receive its international premiere in July at the Cannes Festival – following its selection for the official festival competition and up for a Palme d’Or in the short category.

For the young director, Noite Turva “sets off in exploration of the confrontation between the innocence of fantasies and harshness of reality.” The narrative line is tenuous, “the formal elements are the consequences of the inner conflicts of the characters that tend towards creating the dramatic tension. The landscape is a passive and indifferent antagonist, a boobytrapped place that not only physically conditions the characters but also stimulates their imagination with the sounds that echo and the shadows cast by the moon.”

Diogo Salgado (Coimbra, 1994) studied Cinema at the Higher School of Theater and Cinema and Communications Sciences at the Nova University of Lisbon. Noite Turva is his first film and has already picked up the Best Film Prize at the Shorts Festival of Vila do Conde 2020.

“Noite Turva”, by Diogo Salgado (Trailer)