I Only Rest in the Storm

The charming, well-meaning environmental engineer Sergio (Sérgio Coragem) has traveled from Lisbon to Guinea-Bissau to meet with locals and research the possibility of his European company constructing a road that will connect the city areas to rural villages. While drifting through his revelatory trip, Sergio tentatively makes friends and lovers, talks to people who either embrace or abhor the possible project, and falls into conversations and confrontations about his place in this world: friend or interloper, lover or enemy? Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Pinho’s epic yet scrappy—and sexually fluid—I Only Rest in the Storm is a playful and loose-limbed portrayal of the contemporary postcolonialist liberal mindset that cleverly cuts to the bone in one entertaining scene after another, and features an outstanding supporting performance by Cleo Diára (who won Best Actress in the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) as a local businesswoman and bar owner who suffers no fools.