Mists (Brumas) is a 2003 Portuguese independent feature-length film by Ricardo Costa, a docufiction. Nonlinear narrative, conceived as an auto-biography, it is a voyage to childhood.
Shot with no state funds (uncommon situation in Portuguese film production), self-financed, it is an art film. Formal simplicity – associated with a non conventional, sober and fluid narrative of Time and human condition – is common to most of Ricardo Costa’s films. For him, narrative involves necessarily mise-en-scène and that’s why documentary (real life) tends to turn into fiction. This tendency is fully assumed with Mists, the third Costa’s docufiction, after Changing Tides (1976) and Bread and Wine (1981).
Mists is the first film of a new sequel docufiction autobiographic trilogy, Faraways. Drifts (Derivas), released in 2016, is the second and Cliffs (Arribas), in post-production, is the third one. The filmmaker stars the main roles in those films. Mists is set in Peniche, the protagonist's place of birth. Drifts is set in Lisbon, where he lives and works as photographer, and Cliffs again in Peniche, where he returns to face disquieting situations and puzzling characters.
Mists premiered at the 60th Venice Film Festival (New Territories – 2003), was released in Portugal on 16 November 2006 and opened in New York at the Quad Cinema on March 23, 2011, event followed by other screenings outside the city.