O Caso J.

In 1975, Thomas Harlan's crew filmed Torre Bela's homestead occupation, in the center of Portugal. Three decades later, RED LINE revisits this emblematic film of the Portuguese revolutionary period: in which way did Harlan interfered in the events that seems to naturally develop in front of the camera? What was the impact of the film on the lives of the occupants and the memory of that period?

Portugal, 1968. Salazar, the fascist dictator who reigned the longest time in the world, falls from a chair and suffers a stroke. When he returns to the São Bento mansion to convalesce, he is no longer President of the Council. But no one tells him the truth: not his faithful housekeeper Maria de Jesus, nor his maids Aparecida, Socorro, and Teresinha, nor his personal doctor. For two years he lives under a meticulously constructed illusion, believing he is still President, until his death in 1970.

At an old manor house in northern Portugal, Ana helps her friend, Emília, the elderly housekeeper who is determined to continue to keep the unoccupied house in order for the owners who are never there. As the seasons turn, Mónica, Ana's daughter, challenges her mother's choices and the three generations of women search to understand where they belong in a world that is rapidly fading, where the cycle of life is renovated only through inevitable endings.

1975, the year after the Carnation Revolution. Eduarda, João and Mick come from Northern Europe to work in the co-ops in the occupied farms of central Portugal. Like many others, they come to help with the land and the livestock, give medical appointments, family planning classes, show sexual education films and participate in the traditional dances. They bring a great deal of questions, but the “comrades from the South”, in turn, have more questions than answers.

Margarida Senhorinha, aged 69, is illiterate but records poems, songs and memories of her birthdays on a tape recorder. She’s spent forty years in her house with its garden amidst the blocks of flats of an ever expanding Cacém. Now, her entire life depends on her landlord. She’s at risk of lose her house, perhaps to make way for yet another tower block. A living memory of rural Portugal that has come face to face with urban Cacém, Margarida Senhorinha asks simply: “and now where do I go?”

This film is about two Ukrainians cousins: Sergey and Eduard, who are illegal immigrants in Portugal. They work as construction workers in the outskirts of Lisbon. The two of them share a converted garage with three others illegal Ukrainian immigrants. Their life in the garage is very basic and dull, but their inner life is full of contradictory feelings and nostalgia. The film describes their final months in voluntary exile, when yearning for home becomes more acute while the question of prolonging their stay arises. Finally, they leave Portugal and the film follows their first days in their own country. What kind of dreams can give them the strength to live and survive in these inhuman conditions in a faraway land?