Ganhar a Vida

This film begins a retrospective with a singular work that intensifies the nocturnal and claustrophobic qualities of João Canijo’s narratives, set here within the Portuguese emigrant community in France. Cidália lives with her family on the outskirts of Paris and devotes her life to working and saving money. When her eldest son is killed by the police, she is forced to abandon the discretion that has always defined her life. Determined to discover the truth, she confronts the official explanations and challenges the passivity of the Portuguese emigrant community in France, which continues to live, even more intensely, according to the traditions of Portuguese culture.