The Legacy of Aristides

Synopsis

As the Portuguese consul to France in the early years of the Second World War, Sousa Mendes found himself continually more restricted by the policies of Portugal’s prime minister, who had assumed a position of neutrality in his desire not to offend Hitler. When the Portuguese government denied visas to the swelling number of Jewish refugees entering Portugal because of their religion and perceived race, Sousa Mendes began his first acts of disobedience. Over a period of six months in 1940, in accordance with his own conscience, Sousa Mendes signed thousands of visas that spared the lives of an estimated ten thousand Jews who would have been fated to die in the Nazi death camps. Sousa Mendes’ acts of resistance earned him the wrath of his government, forced him to into early retirement, and later years of dire poverty. However, it also won him a place in the pantheon of truly just men and in Israel, a forest commemorating his tremendous heroism.

Director

Patrick Seraudie was born in Brive in 1960. He lives and works in Limousin. He has directed about twenty documentary films within the company Pyramide Production, which he created in 1988 and of which he was the manager until 2008. He also produced about sixty documentary films, among which about fifteen first films. He participated in Produire en Rãgion in 1995 and in EURODOC in 1999. He was an alternate member of the CNC selective commission from 2005 to 2008, member of the Documentary commission of the Limousin region from 1998 to 2002 and member of the Documentary commission of the Midi-Pyrãnães region from 2007 to 2013. Since 2008, he has dedicated himself to directing.