The Seasons

The film travels at the pace of the seasons through the real and fictional story of a region in Portugal, the Alentejo, and the peoples who have lived there. It begins at a present with no memory and travels back in time to the immemorial time, before the invention of writing. Along the way, it crosses more or less distant pasts: the work and life of German archaeologists detained far away from home during WWII, through their archives and letters; the occupation of the land by the rural workers after the revolution in April 1974; stories kept in the collective memory. During this journey we meet women and men, old people and children, shepherds, hunters, beekeepers, archaeologist, teachers and storytellers, and also ruins, dolmens and a thousand-year old olive tree. All contribute, with their memories, believes and knowledge, to compose a poetic, political, multi-layered and polyphonic portrait of the region. Maureen Fazendeiro