The Portuguese screenwriter, director and producer Teresa Villaverde visits the Italian avant-garde auteur filmmaker Tonino De Bernardi and his wife Mariella Navale in their house in the countryside, and spends the summer there. Villaverde – who last year won the Bildrausch Ring of Film Art for Colo – watches the old couple live its life: Mariella helps a grandson study Latin, Tonino drives off to buy cheese and eggs, they spend their evenings looking at photo albums in the kitchen, they reminisce and tell stories, the family visits, and then tranquillity returns, they sit together for a while and drink a glass of wine, quietly.
At one point, De Bernardi, who was born in 1937 in the Piedmont town of Chivasso, shows extracts from his film Elettra, which he filmed in 1987 with local amateur actors. At this point, Villaverde’s camera moves to the balcony and observes a looming thunderstorm. The possible exchange of filmmakers about their profession does not take place. Instead, the scenes, which capture faces, voices and movements in a scattered fashion, paint a portrait: a portrait of being lovingly accustomed to each other and of that intimate familiarity that is only possible through a shared life. And shared memories.
