Norberto Novais Oliveira

Gilberto and Jacira promised to grow old together – for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Till death them do part.

In order to take a new job as an employee in the public sanitation department, Juliana moves from the inner city of Itaúna to the metropolitan town of Contagem in Brazil. While waiting for her husband to join her, she adapts to her new life, meeting people and discovering new horizons, trying to overcome her past.

Travel through time without leaving your place.

Another day in the life of an elderly couple in the suburbs.

In 2011, during a blackout in an outskirt neighborhood’s street, a family – surrounded by candles that light conversations and thoughts – awaits the return of electricity. Now, ten years later, the light tries to impose its place towards the shadows of memory.

With its obvious simplicity, the film’s title happens to set the mood of the film, or at least its guiding principle: staying anchored in everyday life. More precisely, the life of Maria José and Norberto, who have been married for 35 years and who live in Contagem, in the suburbs of Belo Horizonte. Their marriage is on the rocks, which leads their two sons to also wonder about the future of their own relationships with their wives. The story is quite ordinary. How can one capture such an impercep- tible shift in the heart of the banality of things, only made more noticeable by a crisis? Filming his own family, his own parents, his brother and himself, André Novais Oliveira has chosen to take his time. He shots long sequences, leaving enough time for the fictional situations on which he puts his characters to grow and unfold. Then he uses wide frames to linger on more mundane, concrete or at times farcical moments: eating an orange, cooking, watching television...

Zeca tries to get up early to catch the bus and arrive an hour and a half later at the neighboring town’s school, where he works as a librarian. Waking up early is evermore difficult: something prevents him from maintaining his routine. One day, Zeca meets Louisa.