The Metamorphosis of Birds U

Beatriz married Henrique on her 21st birthday. Henrique, a naval officer, would spend long periods at sea. Ashore, Beatriz, who learned everything from the verticality of plants, took great care of the roots of their six children. The oldest son, Jacinto, my father, dreamed he could be a bird. One day, suddenly, Beatriz died. My mom didn’t die suddenly, but she too died when I was 17 years old. On that day, me and my father met in the loss of our mothers.

Difficult to categorise, as a hybrid of memoir, metafiction, family history, and magical realism, The Metamorphosis of Birds unfolds largely in metaphor-rich images, with voiceover from the director and her family. A bold and inventive debut feature from Catarina Vasconcelos, The Metamorphosis of Birds is a shimmering dreamscape of reminiscence, grief, and identity.