In Vanda’s Room (2000)

In Vanda’s Room dives deep into the slums of Lisbon, observing the lives and deaths of its marginalised inhabitants. Revolving around heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte, the film offers a fragmentary and unflinching look at the mundanity of her life. While the demolition of the neighbourhood serves as its backdrop, the film captures a community ravaged by widespread heroin use since the 1990s. Its documentary approach and image texture, reminiscent of Vermeer’s paintings, reveal human vulnerability beneath the weight of larger structural and societal forces.