Rodrigo Almeida

"In the beginning of this project, I wanted to do a documentary film based on this book by Luiz Ruffato. However, I ended up doing a feature film with many links to documentary. I wanted to know what made Brazilians want to emigrate to Portugal. I chose working with amateur actors and non-actors in both cities, so their own life stories and experiences could be in the film. I did the other way round from the writer. He found these people and made them characters of his book. I looked for people who had similar stories to those described in the book, and made them characters of my film. When I read the book, I was seduced by its "false documentary" characteristic. The book was all written as if it was the transcription of an oral interview the writer had done in Lisbon. I decided to keep this narrative in the film, by a narration with the main character talking to the camera. It's a film about emigration. About dreams and disappointments," says Barahona

In 2011 Portugal began the so-called "year of the Troika" (EU, IMF and ECB budget cuts and economic restructuring), with the level of debt among the Portuguese people reaching staggering amounts and a growing number of families and companies unable to repay their installment loans. Jorge is an unemployed boxer on the verge of losing his son and his wife, who has decided to return to Brazil. As a means of paying off his debt and persuading his wife to remain in Portugal, Jorge accepts a job with a debt-collection agency, which will drag him into a world of violence and crime.