Written and directed by Latifa Saïd, "Terrain Vague" is set in the suburbs of a French city, a territory of marginalized people and abandoned spaces, and tells the story of a meeting between a prostitute and a Maghreb emigrant discovering his sexuality. Filmed in black and white in real locations with local extras, the film seeks an ambiguous record between the reality of the precarious condition of absence, marginalization and incomprehension and the will to believe in something equally precarious as the affects. It is a film about hope in the current context so marked by intolerance and incomprehension of post-industrial society’s emptiness. This French-Portuguese co-production is the second in the career of the French director of Algerian origin and marks her debut in Curtas Vila do Conde. (PC)