Ventura, a Cape Verdean laborer living in the outskirts of Lisbon, is suddenly abandoned by his wife Clotilde. Ventura feels lost between the dilapidated old quarter where he spent the last 34 years and his new lodgings in a recently-built low-cost housing complex.
Vitalina Varela, 55-year-old, Cape Verdean, arrives in Lisbon three days after her husband’s funeral. She's been waiting for her plane ticket for more than 25 years.
“If it rains for one hour in Lisbon, it will rain for five hours in Fontainhas.”
Teacher, talking about his neighborhood
Huillet: That palm tree is a nuisance.
Straub: Let it sway.
Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub in Où gît votre sourire enfoui?
“So we make films on high seas. And as we do not have a book of laws, we work in a very dark area, which is memory, because our material is memory.”
Pedro Costa