A Mãe e o Mar

　　A film where old sailors' tales and folkloric myths become one with reality against the sound of rolling waves, which almost lets you smell the salty sea. The fishing community Vila Chã on the Portuguese coast is known for its female skippers. A local paper claims that it is the only place of its kind in the world. The people here have lived off and with the sea as long as anyone can remember. A small film crew arrives to make a film about its ageing inhabitants, and the result is a generous and tragicomic fresco with plenty of space for small and large stories from the proud people of the seas. But there are not that many of them left. In the last scene, an old sailor smokes a pipe and holds a long soliloquy to the sea - a sincere and unsentimental love declaration to the mother of all living things. Young director Gonzalo Tocha has an enormous talent in simply being present and absorbing anthropological details, without compromising the closeness of the human destinies that live between the foamy seas and the sandy beaches.