[pt] A presente dissertação tem como objetivo realizar uma leitura estético-política da obra do diretor português Pedro Costa. Orientada pelas narrativas, pela mise-enscène e pelos modos de produção do cinema do realizador, ela pretende discorrer e tensionar questões acerca da colonialidade que perpassa Portugal e o continente europeu no século XXI. A partir desta obra que é enfocada nas Fontainhas, bairro lisboeta de emigrados cabo-verdianos que foi demolido pelo estado português, objetiva-se compreender o trabalho estético e político de dois filmes acompanharam este processo: No quarto da Vanda (2000) e Juventude em marcha (2006), além da realização posterior à demolição das Fontainhas: Cavalo Dinheiro (2014). Filmes que apontam para as fantasmagorias dos processos coloniais, buscando assim, trazer as suas personagens como agentes centrais dos procedimentos de fabulação do real de tais apontamentos. / [en] This dissertation aims to carry out an aesthetic-political reading of Portuguese film director Pedro Costa s work. Guided by the filmmaker s narratives, mise-enscène, and cinematic production style, the intention is to reflect on and stress questions related to coloniality that have penetrated Portugal and the European continent in the 21st century. With a body of work focussed on Fontainhas, a Lisbon neighborhood of Cape Verdean immigrants demolished by the Portuguese state, this study aims to understand the aesthetic and political work of two films that accompanied this process: In Vanda s Room (2000) and Colossal Youth (2006), in addition to the film completed after the demolition of Fontainhas: Horse Money (2014). These films point out the phantasmagorias of the colonial processes, seeking, as a result, to bring forth the characters as central agents in the fabling process of the real events noted.

This thesis investigates temporal dimensions of reenactment in experimental filmmaking, with a particular focus on the prominent use of this practice in the cinema of Portuguese director Pedro Costa. The research analyzes the non-professional actors’ performances in Costa’s films and broadly explores the implications of cinematic in-person reenactment, a term coined by Ivone Margulies. More specifically, the analysis sets out to challenge the predominant discourse of documentary reenactment by bringing closer attention to the intricate expression and materiality of cinematic temporality in these films, an approach that is also informed by Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the crystal-image. This concept, I argue, enriches our understanding of temporality in relation to reenactment, and ultimately also the impact Costa’s images have in providing us with a more attentive acknowledgment of the cinematic screen event. The aesthetics activated in these works exemplify what I call aesthetics of ambiguity. Contributing to the scholarly debate on reenactment within cinema studies, this work offers new perspectives on the phenomenon from the conceptual, aesthetic, and phenomenological examples of these films. The aesthetics of Costa exemplifies the temporal ambiguity that manifests itself in instances of in-person reenactments. I argue that this aesthetics challenge – and possibly also enrich - the predominant discourse of cinematic reenactment, by loosening its traditional connection to documentary filmmaking and examining it beyond categories of the real and the fictional.