Some Violence Is Required: A Conversation With Pedro Costa on Notebook | MUBI

Some Violence Is Required: A Conversation With Pedro Costa on Notebook | MUBI.

Portuguese maestro Pedro Costa came to the UK at the beginning of October, 2012. He initially arrived in Cambridge University for a screening of the sublime In Vanda’s Room, then he traveled down to the capital to take part in a pair of Q&As following presentations of the newly remastered Second Run DVD release of Casa De Lava and a 35mm print of Ne change rien. As Ne change rien played, I sat and waited with Costa in the bar of London’s ICA cinema and, with a tape rolling on the table, we started to talk.

NOTEBOOK: How does the projection look?

PEDRO COSTA: It’s great. It must be the projectionist. The sound and the image are perfectly balanced. The other day I got hold of the first DCP of Historic Centre and the girl who screened our test was the popcorn girl. Which is okay, but…

NOTEBOOK: Do you ever envisage working in 35mm again?

COSTA: More than ever. I waited for this moment until I changed to the small cameras. I had this dream. If it stays the same price I could do another film in 35mm. Or, at least, shoot digital and then screen the film in 35mm. That’s what I want. It’s the screening rather than the shooting. Something that annoys me: the fake stillness of digital. The depth and distance of things with DCP is very fake. We, filmmakers and technicians, feel that blacks are not black. Sometimes an American film gets there, but…