Last Conversations

Eduardo Coutinho's 2015 Brazilian documentary consists of interviews with secondary school students. Coutinho asks them what they think, what they do and what they dream of; the camera is fixed and the room bare. The interest lies in not getting answers. Most of the young people speak briefly, fall silent or change the subject; Coutinho does not cut this and leaves his own difficulty in the record. Coutinho was killed in 2014 after the filming was finished, and the film was completed at the editing stage by the team he had long worked with. The narrative also shows the limits of the director's method. Who it's for: those who like interview-based documentary. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a structured narrative; there is only conversation across the film, most of it left unfinished.