It is a documentary about the life of the Portuguese consul who challenged Salazar to save lives, carried out by Victor Lopes with a team of young Argentine university students and filmed in the city of Buenos Aires. The premiere is scheduled for the end of the year at the International Human Rights Festival, in São Paulo, Brazil, between 7th and 13th of December 2016.
"It is not holy to be one elected by God, but rather, if one is elected by God to be holy," repeats Victor Lopes, an Argentine with Portuguese nationality, to underline the humanitarian work of the Portuguese consul, in Bordeaux, which he signed 30,000 visas in just seven days, disobeying the Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, when the Nazis invaded France in the cruel times of 1940, "For Aristides it would have been easier to vacate the army, or the police, The embassy, which at that time was filled with persecuted men, women and children looking for a safe conduct that would take them to the port of Lisbon. However, Aristides did not do so, Sousa Mendes did not call the German troops and the question is what would I do? What would you do? what would our current Portuguese ambassadors do around the world? "This is the eternal conflict generated between" duty and conscience that does not always agree"says Lopes, while also reminding the soldier of the Work of Javier Cercas that being able to kill a defendeless Sanchez Mazas decided not to do it during the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War.
"Portugal had a dictatorship of more than forty years and untangled the plot of complicities of hundreds, thousands of professionals and leaders formed in intolerance will take a long time," as you know happens in countries that suffer from authoritarian regimes, despite the effort and the good will of the current leaders and the new democratic generations. Bringing the screen and audience to the story of Sousa Mendes is one of the goals of the director with a team made up of young people from Argentine universities and the producer "cite tango-ultra tango", under the watchful eye of Paula Fossatti and Ramiro Klement, along with the actors Melissa Zwanck and Nahuel Vec, Lopes will thus "contribute their little grain of sand" to those who have been doing the same thing for a long time in different parts of the world, whether they are family, friends, or faithful followers of the Sousa Mendes cause. Victor Lopes also acknowledges that little by little he will respond to the calls that come daily to him since "the proposal caused a good reception because it is a story that is practically unknown and that still arouses some controversy in the more conservative sectors of Portuguese society."
