Manuela Azevedo

A girl whose heart beats faster than normal and so loudly that it bothers the neighbors seeks both acceptance and escape.

One day, a forgotten box of shoes is discovered in a shelf of the record company. Inside this box, there were tapes containing home made recordings of the famous Portuguese composer - Antonio Variacoes. When one listens to these tapes, where Variações sings in the most pure ways - without any musical background, many times whispering to the recording not to wake up the neighbors - one perceives that this treasure could not remain hidden. The HUMANOS project was born; a "super"-band, composed by "super"-musicians, where the famous Portuguese singers Manuela Azevedo, David Fonseca and Camane; give their voice to music and lyrics from Antonio Variacoes. This film is about the process of preparation of the live concerts in the summer of 2005 and about the approach that these musicians had to the legacy left by Antonio Variacoes.

After long years spent in exile in Paris, Lyubov, a strange and elusive woman, returns to her ancestral estate, about to be sold to pay off the family’s debts. As the centre around which the play revolves, forever oscillating between tragedy and comedy, this maternal figure, this mater dolorosa, played by Isabelle Huppert, returns to a family unsettled by the future of the estate, and more largely, by that of this world she left behind. Modern society, with its social changes, is right around the corner, noisily announcing its arrival.