Joaquim Furtado

The operational commander of the "Captains Movement", describes and recreates a quarter of century later the crucial 24 hours of April 25, 1974, that would topple the Portuguese government and start a democratic regime in Portugal - since another military coup, May 28, 1926, installed a one-party dictatorship there. The scenes in the claustrophobic operation room are recreated, with him alone and a few voices.

Documentary in which the main events that marked the country and Portuguese society in the years 1974 and 1975 are chronologically addressed. The decay of the Marcelist regime, the Revolution of April 25, the troubled period of the Ongoing Revolutionary Process (PREC) , the failure of the Coup of 25 November. A film produced based on archival footage, interspersed with testimonies from some of the actors in the events of that time, to mark the 20 years of the Carnation Revolution.

"Essay on the Military and the Power", a phrase that also belongs to the title of "Gestures & Fragments", sums up the spirit of the film, based on three points of view on the same theme: Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and Eduardo Lourenço, in their own roles, and the one played by Robert Kramer, as an American journalist bent on seeking explanations for the process of the Portuguese Revolution.

The film was to be a documentary, but evolved during production to a fictional film. It nevertheless adheres strictly to the poems and letters exchanged by two of the most outstanding names of the Modernist Movement, Fernando Pessoa (in Lisbon) and Mário de Sá-Carneiro (in Paris). Their endless conversation was dramatically and suddenly terminated.

José Nascimento films the process of the Agrarian Reform that happened in the Portuguese region of Alentejo during the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution.