In the spring of 1974, almost four thousand Portuguese, including hundreds of men from Vila do Conde, set off, as they did every year, for a new cod fishing campaign in the seas around Newfoundland and Greenland. But other winds were blowing from Portugal, and following the news of the revolution, after 25 April the ships of the so-called white fleet stopped at the port of São João da Terra Nova, paralysed by a strike.

After decades of working under conditions dictated by the regime, through a guild, the fishermen were demanding, far from home, the right to better wages and decent living conditions on board. The mythical line fishing with one-man boats, of which only three vessels remained that year, ended in those days with the deliberate sinking of the Ilhavense and the São Jorge, and the return home of the latter's crew on the Novos Mares, a vessel that didn't fish either. That year left a few trawlers and fishing vessels with nets, and a sea of uncertainty, with the profound changes in the country added to the ongoing changes in international ocean law, which would lead to the creation of exclusive economic zones and the restriction of access to fishing grounds frequented by the Portuguese fleet.

SAT · MAY 25 · 4 pm

A Greve na Pesca do Bacalhau (The Cod Fishing Strike)

Abel Coentrão + Celestino São Roque, António de Sousa Oliveira, Carlos Marques Fernandes

Solar - Cinematic Art Gallery

[Loja das Curtas Bookstore]