Cristovam and Pedro Varela Share 'Andra Tutto Bene'

"Andrà tutto bene" in English, "Everything will be alright" is not a music video, a commercial film or any other advertising piece. For these two Portuguese artists, it's something greater and more precious: it's a song and a film intimately connected in a message of hope.

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The message that was released to the world and, in less than 48 hours, became a global phenomenon started as an idea that originally came to composer Cristóvam who, while in his first verses, presented the idea to his friend and film director, Pedro Varela. At that time, "Andrà tutto bene" was already a tribute to the inglorious struggle that was happening in Italian hospitals and the social isolation that was beginning to become a hard reality across Europe.

Both born in Portugal, Cristóvam and Varela started to develop the idea and message in the first quarantine days in Portugal, a time frame that has lasted for more than 20 days straight now. Shaped between lyrics and images, and vice-versa, this piece was built in just a few days, days which stretched into long nights of work between solo sessions of composition and recordings in Terceira Island, in the Azores, and remotely directed filming with Paris joined by pre-requested footage arriving from all over the world to Lisbon. It was under these circumstances that this Portuguese duo managed to accomplish, in record time, this film and music that immediately started being called an anthem of hope by the public.

The music was mixed and mastered in Lisbon, as well as the film which was also finished in several different locations in the city suburbs, all together but physically separated. At the end of it all, it was possible to assemble a group of friends and professionals who had worked together many other times in the past but this time around and for the first time in their lives, physical distance kept them apart.

"These are strange times and like many of you, I too have been dealing with my own anxieties. I wrote and recorded this song as my own way of dealing with them and it is not meant to be more than my little attempt to send out a bit of hope to all those who need it right now. Stay safe. Divided we fight but united we stand", said Cristóvam, the musician who managed to find the perfect partnership with Pedro Varela.

The director, Pedro Varela, also points out that ""We live in a very particular era, we live in the age of content where different media leverage on each other. If music needs to find its audience, it also needs to have an original and unique voice and eventually a narrative, and in doing so they become something unison, where visual memories influence the musical message and transform it forever"".

When Pedro Varela heard the first verse of "Andrà Tutto Bene", he convinced his friend that they needed to create a real connection, an immediate identification with the audience, it was necessary to portray those at home and those on the front line. After all, it's a message and a chronicle of the times we are all living, moments of uncertainty where we need to build some hope. "Andrà Tutto Bene" reflects a unique moment in Human History.

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