Fiction- 35mm
Duration: 100 min
Budget: U$1,650,000

An ironic drama about defeated  utopias, the concept of terrorism, sexual behavior and the construction of a myth. While one of their own, ANA, is dying, a group of friends that fought against the military dictatorship and their adult children are faced with the conflict between the past and the daily life of today.

Synopsis:

ANA is dying. An ex-guerrilla fighter and icon of the left, she is the last link of her group of friends who resisted the military dictatorship in Brazil. They reencounter each other in the waiting room of a health clinic.Told from the point of view of two generations, this film is narrated like a jigsaw puzzle.  The friends  reencounter each other in the waiting room of a health clinic, where Ana is dying.  ANA will be presented to the spectator through flashbacks as her friends tell her story.

With this in mind, THE MEMORY THEY TELL ME will follow the day-to-day life of the main characters today: IRENE, a filmmaker; CARLOS, an artist; and ZEZÉ  a contemporary art curator.

Each of the characters in the waiting room introduces social questions that link the 60s to current ones. Thus, PAOLO, a Italian refuge living in Brazil, brings the issue of terrorism into the current day. Why is he still viewed as a criminal when the Brazilian characters are seen as heroes?  What distinguishes the reality of the Brazilian guerrilla who lived under a dictatorship, from  Italian of the 1970s ? IRENE and PAOLO have a history, but Paolo had also a history with Ana.   A request by Italy for PAOLO’S extradition, leads to his imprisonment in Brazil.

Led by IRENE, the Brazilian intelligentsia emerges, and mobilizes to free him.

Parallel to this story, is the chronicle of a younger generation, the children of the ex-guerrillas, who enter into conflict with their parents. Each of them has a profound admiration for their parents due to their mythic stature in relation to the dictatorship, which has not escaped their attention. In fact, they posses a certain envy of this “heroic” past. However, contradictions in their professional lives and behavior are going to bring their differences to the surface and begin to unravel this image. Professional and emotional worlds collide, contributing to this generational conflict. GABRIEL and IRENE´s son, EDUARDO’S (an artist) has a relationship.

Friends do not stop arriving in the waiting room; including, RICARDO, GABRIEL’S father and an ex-militant, who is a pure conservative and doesn’t know (or pretends not to know) about his son’s sexual orientation. They receive good news: ANA will recover. Parents and children commemorate at a bar next door. They share many funny stories and memories through flashbacks about ANA. Everyone relaxes.

But is the death of ANA that reunites the friends again.  At the cemetery, in the receiving room of the crematory, everyone is present for the last homage. Nothing works the way that it should—the CD doesn’t play, the projection doesn’t work, the microphone fails, and the flowers are late. IRENE comments to her son that if this were cinema, everything would go as planned.

A camera crane reveals a beautiful and perfect scene where the homage goes as planned and ANA has the kind of farewell that her friends would have liked for her to have.  A farewell speech by ANA is projected onto the screen.The spectators understand that IRENE’S film is about ANA. The cinema as a possible dream.