avó had a dream of selling chestnuts and fixing roads

I re-discovered audio recordings of my grandmother recounting her dreams and decided to use it as the opening narration to the film. My grandmother tells me about a dream she had the night before in which she encounters different business opportunities and her meeting a man who sells her machinery to fix the roads. This telling of a dream centered around money is crucial in understanding our own family history in South Africa and the reason why, as a young girl, she boarded a ship in Madeira to come live with her father in South Africa. Post World War II, Madeira - already struggling with a weak economy - was left in a state of poverty and despair. South Africa was identified as a new potential home of abundance. My grandparents often only talk about money.

This trait, quite common to immigrant families, highlights that hovering fear of a struggle they cannot re-endure. This anxious relationship with money, as if through an ancestral vein, follows me as a religion of obsession. Her telling of this money dream kicks off the film whilst her praying for more successful business ventures for her children and grandchildren ends the film. This insertion is critical in relaying my own personal memory and familial background within South Africa, our home.