Film details

Synopsis

Priests. Revolutionaries. Grandpas.

In 1965, six young priests in their twenties – Carlos, Eloy, Antonio, Jesús, Julio and Miguel – leave their native Spain to discover the World. As missionaries in Bolivia, they want to change mentalities. But they’ll be the ones changed: witness to great Latin-American revolutions, they rub shoulders with Che Guevara’s guerrilleros, hide weapons and wounded men, preach for a Liberation Theology. Kicked out of the country, expelled by the Church, these good friends ended up splitting. Now in their seventies, they live in different parts of the World: Latin America, Spain, Quebec. Most renounced to their holy vows, some married, had children. While the elder shows worrying signs of Alzheimer, they’ve decided to take back the journey that has changed their lives. The youngest’s daughter, Sandra Rodríguez, filmmaker, has decided to follow them. Beyond heroic tales, forgotten memories and mixed-up versions of History, what is left of their utopias?

Credits

Script : Sandra Rodriguez

Photography : Geneviève Perron

Editing : Mariano Franco

Sound : Sylvain Vary, Catherine Van Der Donckt

Music : Mariano Franco, Fernando Pinzon

Production : Arrimage productions, Parallaxes productions

Financial partners

SODEC

Conseil des Arts du Canada
Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec

ONF

Direction

Sandra Rodriguez

Born in Montreal, Sandra Rodríguez has worked in the documentary field for almost a decade. Her first film was shot in Bolivia, following activists’ fight for the right to water. Compelled by the need to meet and share with others, she has since worked as director and screenwriter, but also as producer and cinematographer on several films broadcasted internationally, which tackle diverse subjects, from landmines, to Belgian immigration, flirting techniques and archeological discoveries. We Were There (2012), is her first film addressing a more personal topic: family, ideals and memories. In her other life, she is also completing a PhD in sociology of new media technologies.