April Captains

On the night of 25 April 1974 a song plays on the radio in Portugal, and it is the signal for a coup that will end a dictatorship of forty-eight years. Young officers move their units towards Lisbon. People come into the streets but the expected fighting does not happen; they put carnations in the soldiers' rifles. The film follows that night through Captain Maia's column. Maria de Medeiros tells the Carnation Revolution not as a heroic epic but as hours of uncertainty: where the orders came from, who is on which side, and the constant sense that a single shot could ruin everything. The director also takes a role in the film. Stefano Accorsi plays Captain Maia, with Joaquim de Almeida and Frédéric Pierrot as other officers. The film screened at Cannes in 2000. Who it's for: Anyone interested in Portuguese history, narratives of political change, and films compressed into a single night. Who it's not for: There are many characters and a viewer who does not know the history may lose track of who is who. Some of the subplots also slow the narrative.