Miguel Gonçalves Mendes has been filming the meaning of life throughout his entire career. Although his best-known work is in the documentary field, a closer look at his filmography allows for a journey through fictional and experimental variations, sprinkles of animation, TV series, installations, music videos and even institutional advertising. Literature has stood out as the common thread to some of his most relevant movies, but as a filmmaker, he does not neglect music, photography, nor the fine arts. “The Meaning of Life” offers a journey around the globe, in search for new answers to an old question: what is the meaning of our existence? Our guide is a young Brazilian man with a hereditary, rare and incurable disease. At the same time, the viewer is presented to seven emblematic contemporary characters, such as Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, writer Valter Hugo Mãe, or Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, ordinary people turned into icons who influence the life of many. Still a work in progress, this hybrid feature by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes attempts to understand what brings us together as humans, at a time when the system is collapsing, and there is little to believe in. (HB)