The directorial debut of the actor Miguel Nunes (“Letters from War”, “Swan”) results in a poetic and realist film, a portrait in different times and shots: Lisbon as a passageway, a crossing point, summer as a period of uncertainty, a promise of something more. It's not by chance that the film starts at the end, with a questionnaire for obtaining a visa, and from the outset everything's out in the open: Miguel fell in love with a boy the previous summer and wants to go to New York after him. Told from back to front, the story is composed by little sketches that gradually unveil this love affair as if it were a ball of yarn: at first the feeling of longing, then the intimacy, the discovery, and the reunion. The wrong turns of this emotional turmoil are a reflection of the world's seasonality, job insecurity and elusive feelings. By looking back, as time stops, the film seems to bring everything to a halt, in some sort of tribute to melancholic memories. (JA)