Tabu is a 2012 Portuguese independent black-and-white drama film directed by Miguel Gomes , the title of which references F. W. Murnau 's silent film of the same name . The film competed at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival , where it won the Alfred Bauer Award ( '' Silver Bear '' for a feature film that opens new perspectives ) and The International Federation of Film Critics ( FIPRESCI ) prizes . A narrator , Miguel Gomes himself , reads in voice-over a poetic and philosophical text that invokes a legend in which the Creator orders , but the heart commands : the suicide of an intrepid explorer who , somewhere in Africa , long ago , plunges into a turbid river after a frustrated love affair and is devoured by a crocodile . Many swear they have seen a beautiful woman and a sad crocodile on the riverbank and that the two share a mysterious empathy . Three disparate women dwell in an old building in Lisbon . Aurora , an octogenarian living off her pension , eccentric , talkative and superstitious , seeming more dead than alive , and Santa , her housemaid from Cape Verde , live at the same apartment . Santa is semi-literate , but proficient in the divinatory art of voodoo . Pilar , their neighbor and friend , a Catholic middle-aged woman , and militant social benefactor , involves herself in their psychodramas . Pilar has another friend , a romantic painter in love , a gentleman who insists on offering her tacky pieces of art . But Pilar is more concerned with Aurora : with Aurora 's solitude , with her frequent escapes to the casino . She is even more worried about Santa , with her long silences and devil arts . Santa thinks it better to take care of oneself without annoying others , so keeps quiet
62nd Berlin International Film Festival
62nd Berlin International Film Festival
Tabu (2012 film)