Captivity is a condition of confinement, both in space and in time. The person inside the captivity is not exclusively or necessarily a prisoner, but becomes an inherent part of that space. In turn, the captivity space is not inert, rather it is characterized by who is contained there, it is also shaped by that experience.
Alzira was born, raised and lived the entire 91 years of her life in the same house: in the city of São João da Madeira, in the north of Portugal. Her life experiences are inseparable from the house’s walls and objects of intimacy. The film attempts to capture the relationship of mutual construction between this woman and this space, a construction performed by the time lived there. Time is what makes that house, that space, transcend its geometry and become the shelter of her recollections, of her memories, and of the wanderings of her mind. “Captivity” is thus a film about the time that belongs to memory, indelibly written within a space.

In 2010, André Valentim Almeida set out on a journey of discovery. In an age when everything seems to have been explored and new land may only be found in space, perhaps a journey of discovery inevitably makes one look especially closely at and back at everything one encounters. On the schooner “Creoula” he meets a group of scientists who have embarked on Portugal’s greatest scientific expedition to the Ilhas Selvagens in the Atlantic Ocean. During the journey the filmmaker discovers connections to his uncle, a ship’s captain who used to fish in Newfoundland, Portugal’s maritime past and always himself. He looks at the past, the present and the future and discovers more than he expected from this expedition. And then, somehow, there is the World Championship and for a brief moment everyone is euphoric.