It is a portrait of an unflattering Portugal towards ethnic minorities.
The film resulted from Rui Cardoso Martins script that plunged into a world apart from mazes created by the linking of eight blocks of buildings that were called J Zone, in Chelas. This feature film was a box office hit in 1998, 250,000 spectators went to the movie theaters and helped launch the career of actress Nuria Madruga and other young Portuguese actors. Until recently, residents in the neighborhood of the County felt even more stigmatized and discriminated since the debut of this film. From the halls of death, the preferred labyrinth of drug addicts, prostitutes and young offenders there is nothing left, has been demolished by the local council and its residents were relocated to other residential areas of the city of Lisbon. What prevails is the memory of the movie, very good indeed. What is clear? A different reality captured by the sure hand of Leonel Vieira. It's kind of a social portrait, because J Zone may have been demolished, but the segregation of communities, prejudice and its problems are still present in the Portuguese society. It is however, a fiction film, where there is room for the love between two young people from two very different worlds and a robbery that goes wrong. Good cinema.
