Arquivo

Portuguese doctor Manuel Luciano da Silva has fostered an obsession since the forties: he is fascinated by Christopher Columbus and is in search of his true identity. He believes the discoverer may have been Portuguese in origin and that he was not born in Genoa, today an Italian city, as emphasized in the most accepted official version. To prove his hypothesis, he sets forth in search of evidence of the navigator throughout up-country Portugal and also in the United States, to where he migrated in his youth in search of work. Married and with his wife, Manuel reaches a small Portuguese town named Cuba in the region of Alentejo where Columbus’ parents are said to have lived and brought up their son in childhood. Later in his navigations, Columbus christened the Caribbean island he discovered with the name of his home town. The doctor also goes to Porto Santo, one of the Madeira Islands where Columbus is said to have lived with his wife. The film is based on the book “Cristóvão Colombo Era Português”, written by Manuel Luciano da Silva in partnership with his wife Silvia Jorge da Silva. In a rare appearance on screen, director Manoel de Oliveira and his wife Maria Isabel play the main couple in their old age.