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.

"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.