There are only a few films that have the ability to sublimate, that is, that show such an spectacular solidity on the screen and leave a gaseous sensation on the retinas. Pátio do Carrasco is one of them. You can feel in your fingers the texture of all the walls, the wrinkles of each cloth and the skin consistency of each character, but there is a delicateness in the image that turns everything that has been touched into ethereal. Inspired by the story Un Fratricide by Franz Kafka, the new medium-length film by the renowned Portuguese filmmaker André Gil Mata, is a careful and atypical thriller that bases its mystery on the exchange of glances, enhanced thanks to temporal repetition. Who is looking at whom? Who is the victim, who is the executioner and who is the accomplice? Located in just a few square meters, in different houses around the Pátio do Carrasco, the characters are enveloped by a dense and dark atmosphere, where the fear historically associated with the square itself, catalyzes in the character of Schmar. The fear and anguish of this character will be what definitively guides him towards crime, a fear and anguish born from pleasure. A crime as an instant of sovereignty. NURIA CUBAS