Cape Verde is the literal and metaphorical epicenter of our world spinning out of control. It is the place where some of the most powerful hurricanes in the world are born. It’s on these dry and wind-blown islands that the filmmakers find humans and animals alike who tell a universal story of the will to live.
The hurricanes are caused by the Coriolis Effect: the earth’s rotation bends and deflects trade winds running between the islands, turning them into storms. The effect is increased by global warming and the rise of sea temperatures, causing the hurricanes to become more devastating.
A centipede makes its way across the arid desert. Workers clean a dried up well, hoping for rain that has not come for five years. A newborn turtle struggles through a garbage-filled
beach to the sea. A fisherman gets lost in the fog and runs out of water as he tries to find his way back home.
There is a driving force, a common demeanor, that propels all living things forward and keeps us going. Like the Cape Verdean composer and poet Vasco Martins says: -„whether we realize it or not, we are all on a pilgrimage“.
Instead of despair, the filmmakers turn to those trying to help. A naturalist cares for sea turtles maimed by fishing nets. Young environmental volunteers clean up garbage drifting endlessly from the sea, in a Sisyphean labor. Yet human beings are not the focus in the film. Here, all beings are equally worthy of importance. All life is sacred and awe inspiring. An awe that might point to a way out of our predicament, if only we could leave behind our anthropomorphic hubris.
The antagonist in the film is unnamed and unseen, but it is clear there is a collective adversary. As Vasco Martins says: – “we are ungrateful guests”, but ones who “deep down love you [the earth] and don’t want to leave.”