Rio Grande

1996. “Postal dos Correios” plays on the radio, a song by the group Rio Grande that has become an anthem for several generations. It sings about the lives of João Daniel and Laurinda Rosa, a couple who were born and raised in the mountains of Alentejo, in the interior of a forgotten Portugal, where work is lacking and the heat is intense. They pack their entire lives in a basket, hop on a bus and leave for the city. Like so many across the country, they go in search of a better life.
On the banks of the Tejo River, in the city where everything runs faster, Laurinda and João Daniel get used to living between the new freedom of the present and the longing for a distant home, orphans of that past place. João Daniel works at Lisnave. Laurinda makes custom dresses. And the days, like the river, flow between turmoil, the birth of son Matias, crises, revolutions and ambitions of the family and the nation. When Matias, as an adult, is pushed out by his own country, his parents’ nest is left empty. João Daniel and Laurinda will now have to meet again and relearn how to love. How will they close their cycle? Returning to Alentejo, to their eternal home? Or embracing the future and the city?
This is the story of so many Portuguese people who, from north to south, left the countryside and embarked on the adventure of cities, leaving their country and sailing beyond the known. It’s a story of choices, of struggles, of navigating between longing and the hunger to live. It is the story of this Rio Grande already sung and now [re]told by the voice of its protagonists.