In “Ada Kaleh”, the German director Helena Wittmann takes us through the hallways and rooms of a house, which displays some signs of ageing and is inhabited by a group of young people. We know nothing about them. We don't know if they live there or if they're just passing through. All we know is that they're surrounded by the walls of this house. Amidst bodies, plants, dancing bodies of light, the sound of swaying trees, and the outside community encircling the house, Wittmann explores the possibilities of a new place, dreamed by those youngsters talking to each other, reading, admiring the nature and, above all, going into a deep sleep. Maybe this new place will do justice to the fate of the island of Ada Kaleh, submerged in the Danube since 1970 during the construction of a huge hydroelectric plant — a real iron gate. As the narrator utters in the beginning of this film, we need imagined countries, imagined communities and new places, preferably rocked to the sound of “Samba Fatal” by Marcos Valle. This is Helena Wittmann's first film screening at Curtas Vila do Conde. (PD)