Five years after his film about author Florbela Espanca, Portuguese writer-director Vicente Alves do Ô returns to literary portraiture with this transfixing depiction of the poet Al Berto as a young man navigating a time of sweeping transition for his country.

It is 1975, and Al Berto has returned to his hometown of Sines after studying aborad. Squatting in the mansion taken from his family during the revolution, Al Berto and his friends begin cultivating a bohemian scene in Sines, one rife with flamboyant displays of artistic and sexual freedoms—and stoking the ire of local conservatives.

Based on the journals of Alves do Ô’s own late brother João Maria, a friend and lover of the legendary poet, Al Berto evokes its period in exquisite detail and pays tribute to the boldness of youth in the face of oppressive reactionary forces.