April Captains

April Captains Portuguese Capites de Abril is a 2000 film telling the story of the Carnation Revolution, the military coup that overthrew the fascist dictatorship known as the Estado Novo in Portugal onApril 1974. Although dramatised, the plot is closely based on the events of the revolution and many of the key characters are real such as Captain Salgueiro Maia and Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano.

The film opens on the evening ofApril 1974, as a young conscript soldier Daniel kisses farewell to his girlfriend Rosa before boarding a train from Lisbon back to his Army base at Santarem. Both are fearful that he will be sent to fight in the Portuguese Colonial War. Late and depressed, Rosa then travels by tram to Antonias flat to babysit for her daughter Amelia. On arriving back late at his base, Daniel is oblivious to the imminent coup. Captain Salgueiro Maia arrests the base commander at gunpoint and orders the soldiers to assemble on parade in the middle of the night he asks them to come with him to Lisbon to overthrow the government. Maias erudite but cynical and cautious colleague Major Gervasio refuses to take part, as does Lieutenant Lobo.Meanwhile, in Lisbon, leftwing journalistlecturer Antonia is having a row with her estranged husband Manuel, an Army captain, over atrocities he has been involved with during the Colonial War. Rosa having arrived to babysit, Antonia then goes to a formal reception where she pleads with her brother Filipe Correia a minister in the government, to release one of her students who had been arrested by the DGS secret police. Filipe refuses to help and returns to his conversation with General Pais. The head of the DGS Salieri is also present at the reception he recognises Antonia and subsequently assaults her in a toilet. Antonia returns home in despair, not realising that her estranged husband Manuel is also a coup plotter. Manuel and his colleague prepare to seize control of the Rdio Clube Portugus, a radio station, from which communiques on behalf of the Armed Forces Movement will be broadcast. Meanwhile, simultaneously, Maia and his troops are preparing to set off for Lisbon, and the other coup plotters are also preparing to move into position. The signal for the coup to start is the playing of Grandola, Vila Morena on the radio shortly after midnight onApril. Maias troops set off in a column of armoured vehicles. M

Source: Wikipedia