António Lobo Antunes

A documentary about the life and work of José Cardoso Pires. The information was gathered through a series of interviews made by the journalist Clara Ferreira Alves during autumn and winter of 1997 and also by people who were close to him.

"I write to have a mountain of books when I die." Psychiatrist António Lobo Antunes is one of the most internationally recognized Portuguese writers. His novels, usually settled in Lisbon, are published in prestigious publishers in several countries (Christian Bourgois, Random House, Luchterhand). In Nordlund's film, the characters and scenes from his books constantly interrupt the writer's speech. Lisbon invades his home. The voices of the characters impose themselves to the writer's house. António Lobo Antunes compares his writing to a watercourse that leaves to freely find its way.

In 1971, António Lobo Antunes' life is brutally interrupted when he is drafted into the Portuguese Army to serve as a doctor in one of the worst zones of the Colonial War – the East of Angola. Away from everything dear he writes letters to his wife while he is immersed in an increasingly violent setting. While he moves between several military posts he falls in love for Africa and matures politically. At his side, an entire generation struggles and despairs for the return home. In the uncertainty of war events, only the letters can make him survive.

"I write to have a mountain of books when I die." Psychiatrist António Lobo Antunes is one of the most internationally recognized Portuguese writers. His novels, usually settled in Lisbon, are published in prestigious publishers in several countries (Christian Bourgois, Random House, Luchterhand). In Nordlund's film, the characters and scenes from his books constantly interrupt the writer's speech. Lisbon invades his home. The voices of the characters impose themselves to the writer's house. António Lobo Antunes compares his writing to a watercourse that leaves to freely find its way.

Nuno is the son of divorced parents. He lives a nomadic existence with his father: he lost all his friends and never stays long enough anywhere to make new friends. Now Nuno has become a drug addict, he’s in hospital, in a coma struggling between life and death. His father and his father’s sister remain by his bedside. The three separately evoke requests from the past and other characters they meet also complement their current life experiences and memories. Based on the novel by António Lobo Antunes.