The arrival of the proud woman from Cape Verde is like an absurd, albeit obvious, ceremony. The heroine in Pedro Costas climbs with bare, calloused feet Vitalina Varela down the gangway at Lisbon Airport. The gangway directs Vitalina’s steps. Here, more precisely: in Lisbon’s Fontainhas district, after 40 years of grueling waiting, she hopes to see her husband Joaquim again: a notoriously unreliable casual worker, idiot and drinker.
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