Álvaro and Maria do Carmo lived happily in Angola. He was a successful businessman and she was a mild mannered housewife. They have two children together, Ana and João, who were studying and living their teenage years in Luanda... Until the day the civil war broke out and everything fell apart. Amidst declarations of independence, a wave of violence breaks out and the established peace and order fades away. In July, 1975, the Mendonça family, along with over five hundred thousand people, leave their belongings behind and embark on an air convoy that would become the biggest exodus in the history of the Portuguese people to a homeland that most only knew from photos and dubbed it Metropolis. In Lisbon, Joaquim and Natália, Álvaro’s brother-in-law and sister, take the Mendonça family in their small apartment, where they will try to get their lives back in order. However, over that hot summer of 1975, the integration seemed to be far from easy.
Natália Mendonça Cardoso
