“This film takes place during the crisis [2011, 2012] and I lived firsthand how this crisis affected my generation. I think it was enormously violent and it almost seems that, after a pandemic, a war and an inflationary crisis, this was left behind as just one more thing. But I think it was the crisis of a generation”, said Simão Cayatte.“Vadio”, produced by Ukbar Filmes, crosses the paths of two characters: André, a teenager who is at his mercy even after being abandoned by his father, and Sandra, teacher and single mother, who loses her job and custody of her daughter. While the script was being written, Simão Cayatte, 39, focused on the character Sandra (actress Joana Santos), inspired by the experiences of people she knew . At the same time, I was working on another story with that other character, André (newcomer Rúben Simões).“It was when I decided to put the two characters together that I realized that this heterogeneity was good for the story and that they revealed themselves in a more shocking. They are a bit like each other’s lifeline”, he said. Simão Cayatte placed the action in the Alentejo and in the years of Pedro Passos Coelho’s government (2011-2015), in a brief reference in the film to a speech, broadcast on a television channel, in which he suggested that teachers emigrate. “In 2012, I had just returned from New York, where I did my master’s degree in directing and where I was already writing stories in Portuguese. And when I come back, it was difficult years. There was no work, people were discouraged and the country was going through this crisis”, he recalled. The director admits that “Vadio” is “a tough film”. “I think we all know people who closed their businesses, who gave up on their their dreams, went out, people whose mental health was greatly affected and a generation ago [sobre a qual] I think that only a few years from now will we really understand what happened. At the movies [aquele tempo da crise] It’s been a much discussed topic, but I think it’s still an open wound”, he considered. light, a people for whom I have a lot of affection and I wanted to talk about the abandonment there, the abandonment of people, but also the abandonment of a region, of a country that, at the time, was quite abandoned by its partners”, he explained. ” was shot in 2019 and edited during the pandemic, having been on hold for its premiere in cinemas: “I filmed a series [‘Vanda’, para a OPTO] that took me a whole year, we were busy with other things, and we waited for the right time”, he justified. “Vadio” is the first feature film by a director who is also a screenwriter and actor. years by the hand of his uncle, director and assistant director João Cayatte, in the film “Terra Fria” (1992), by António Campos, in which he said just one sentence. He later worked with Werner Schroeter, Carlos Saboga, Stan Douglas, Ivo M Ferreira or Cristèle Alves Meira, but that’s the direction he chooses. several short films, Simão Cayatte makes his directorial debut in 2011 with the short film “A Viagem”, selected for the Cinéfondation program at the Cannes Film Festival.