Saudade

Saudade (Nostalgia) provides a sensitive and perceptive portrait of the human dimension of immigration. Placed against a background of local history, this video highlights how Portuguese immigrants have recreated their homeland's past in their everyday life in New Bedford, Massachusetts during much of this century. 

This is one of the first full-length videos to document the experience and culture of the Portuguese in the United States. The story-line of Saudade is based on the personal reminiscences of seven Portuguese women and men in New Bedford: six immigrants from the Azores, Madeira, and the mainland and one second generation Portuguese-American. The unfolding of memories, songs, and visual representations of the past is juxtaposed with contemporary ways of life; reconstruction of the homeland's past provides continuity of immigrants' lives in the context of their specific experiences in an American industrial city.