Digital Filmmaking at the Interstices

This chapter offers a comprehensive discussion of the making of In Vanda’s Room (2000). It contextualises Pedro Costa’s use of digital video to sustain a low-budget shooting process that merges personal and professional agency. This filmcan surely be considered the filmmaker’s most radical approach to filmmaking, particularly with regards to its shooting process. Unsurprisingly, it is commonly analysed as the result of a personal endeavour which privileges creative independence and artisanal practices steering away from film industry norms. As this chapter explains, however, the film is as much a result of a low scale digital video artisanal practice as it is of production negotiations commonly observed in European film co-productions. Examining this interstitial quality, this chapter offers a fresh insight into the making of In Vanda’s Room by also scrutinising its finance and post-production processes, overlooked in previous academic and non-academic literature about the film.