Planalto

Mirandese Plateau, 21st century. Manuel, a young adult son of a Portuguese father and an Angolan mother, is tormented by the trauma of war and dreams of a perfect country where (re)birth is peace in the eyes of humans. “The dream is a little different from reality, that’s the point.” He found peace in Portugal but was confronted with the other side of the dream during his forced exile. Herculano, a gypsy veteran of the colonial war, travels in his mule-drawn cart, collecting what remains of a society that has reached the limit of suicidal abundance, while humming songs reminiscent of his forced participation in the colonial war.

A man hunts, a donkey dies and machines invade the plot. Absence and loss are themes that run throughout the film, as are relations with a colonial past, the collapse of civilisation and biocultural extinction. The juxtaposition of these elements and the presence of vital events common to the lives of animals and humans, reproduction, birth and death, serve to dramaturgically punctuate and transcend the separation between human and animal.