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Edition 2017
Films
Leaving, becoming, and returning – that’s every immigrant’s dream. But over time, that dream is diluted by immigration. And when the time to return comes, if it does come, it’s once again a weaning process and readjustment to one’s motherland, which is not quite the same as the one we left. José Vieira, came to France as a child and never returned to his native Portugal. He knows he will never return. His father went back after spending 16 years in France. His story threads through the film acting as an echo to other encounters with Manuel, José Maria, Carolina and others whose dream of “D-Day return” was shattered by bitter reality. Strangers in their own country, they struggle to find a meaning to their scattered lives again. Haunted by the diffuse suffering of this uprooting, which, from now on, gives rhythm to their daily life, they survive. Filmed in Super 8 and digital video, the film takes us along a path between the emigrant’s imagination and the reality of immigration and between the desires and constraints common to all those in exile.
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Original Title:
Le Pays où l'on Ne Revient Jamais -
Country:
France -
Year:
2005 - 52'
Director
José Vieira
Born in Oliveira de Frades, José Vieira left for France in 1965, aged seven. Since 1985, encouraged by the political transformations that took place in Portugal and by his own involvement with immigrant solidarity groups, he has directed around thirty documentaries for France 2, France 3, Cinquème and Arte, creating a portrait of immigration in France based on his own personal experiences and the individual stories that he has come to know.
The great difficulties endured by Portuguese immigrants – life in the slums, fraudulent employers, as well as hate and discrimination – motivated José Vieira to reconstruct a collective memory and a narrative that applies to all of these immigrants, regardless of their origins, by explaining the motives which led them to leave their country and fight for a better life.
The great difficulties endured by Portuguese immigrants – life in the slums, fraudulent employers, as well as hate and discrimination – motivated José Vieira to reconstruct a collective memory and a narrative that applies to all of these immigrants, regardless of their origins, by explaining the motives which led them to leave their country and fight for a better life.
