April Showers

Just before the commemoration of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution, the young theatre maker Pedro – whose play about events just won’t get off the ground – makes an interesting discovery. While clearing his grandmother’s house after she’s moved to a home, he discovers something that could serve throw some light on his father’s disappearance soon after the revolution. That would explain why some former revolutionaries curse his grandmother.
In the caravan in which the family used to go on holiday to Spain, Pedro finds two revolvers. He runs out on his pregnant girlfriend and other obligations and hitches the caravan up to his car. The journey takes him to Spain, via a man who probably knows more. He tells him that Pedro’s father and a certain Chico stayed in Spain. One of the two was killed by the other. Pedro’s idiosyncratic family travels after him knowing that they will have to face up to the past .
‘Em Abril, aguas mil,’ is the Portuguese proverb. On 25 April 1974, it poured with rain during the Carnation Revolution. Pouring rain also starts the directing début by Ivo Ferreira, that perversely questions an idealised heroic Portuguese past. Shot inventively and painstakingly edited, April Showers unravels an event that emerged from ideals that ran riot – and are universal. (GT)