Arquivo

Antão Cristório, a fisherman from the state of Maranhão, has lost his son, very young, assassinated, knifed by a husband betrayed during a popular bumba-meu-boi festival. The loss brings back the past to Cristório - when he was a boy, learning about boats and the secrets of the sea, and fishing. He also learned about the mystery of phantom ships, of ghosts, and of piocos, mystical entities that people the oceans and, furtively, visit the villages to kidnap virgins, take them out to sea, and return them as women. All around Cristório there are characters such as Aquimundo, an old man several centuries old, representing Time; Querente, his fishing mate, and the incarnation of a Portuguese soldier who drowned in 1589; and Maria das Águas, a harlot to the fishermen, an enchanted being living in the Kingdom of the Waters in the Atlantic. Cristório is in love with Quertide, a very beautiful girl present in his thoughts for the rest of his life. She was kidnapped by the piocos and never again returned. For all his life, Cristório will pursue the piocos, but cannot have his true love back again. Camborina and Germana, inseparable sisters, strong and warrior-like, are part of Cristório?s life in a surprising way. The story is set in the Golfão Maranhense in an atmosphere of magic realism. The film is an adaptation of the novel by the same name, written by José Sarney. The soundtrack is by contemporary pianist and composer Gilberto Mendes, the subject of a documentary A Odisséia Musical de Gilberto Mendes (2005), selected for the 29th Mostra with photography by Odorico Mendes, his son.