In August 1972, during the last years of the Estado Novo (dictatorship state), an unprecedented holiday colony for children of political prisoners was held in Caldas da Rainha. Here, for a fortnight, 18 children between the ages of 7 and 14, brutally scarred by the imprisonment of their parents and with a past of clandestinity, suffering and loneliness, learn how to play with others and to be free for the first time.

Inspired by real accounts of men and women who, as children, were plunged into clandestinity with their parents, the film portrays the last years of the dictatorship through the eyes of an 8-year-old girl (Manuela Labaredas) who lived her entire childhood in hiding, without going to school or having any kind of contact with other children, and who came to know freedom in this holiday colony.

This is the story of a sacrificed childhood and of a girl who discovers another ‘world’ for the first time, but also that a prison has remained inside her from which she may never be able to free herself.

Director: Marco Martins

Country of Production: Portugal, Greece

Production companies: Quimera Quântica, Uma Pedra no Sapato, asterisk*

Language: Portuguese

Supported by: ICA, RTR and the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center