Dans le jardin du monde
( No Jardim do Mundo )

Maya Rosa
2004 - 64 min - Beta SP & Beta num - Couleur - France, Portugal

The Alentejo is the vast region of plains in the South of Portugal. Through stories of farmlands, cowherds and other workers, we realise what life has been for the men and women there. With lucidity, poetry and humour, they recall the years of torment: the immense estates of the rich landowners, submission, hunger, illiteracy, the 48 – year regime of Antonio Salazar, its secret police and its prisons...
On the 25th of April 1974, the Revolution of Carnations put an end to the dictatorship. The farm workers occupied the big estates and turned them into Cooperatives, which were legalised by the Agrarian Reform law. But successive governments changed the law and gave the land back to the former landowners.
Beyond all theses dramatic upheavals, between tales of darkest misery and collective euphoria, the film conveys rhythm and light with scenes from daily life and poems of popular poets.