AllMovie

Based on an autobiography by Vergilio Ferreira that was banned during Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal (1945-1968), this compelling drama features the forced confinement of a 12-year-old boy in a seminary. When a patroness (Eunice Munoz) chooses to send Antonio (Canto e Castro) to a seminary to be trained as a priest for the village, he has nothing to say about it. His widowed mother needs him to help her with the other children, his family is impoverished, and he has no interest in being a priest, but none of this matters. Once in the seminary, he makes friends with another boy in the same situation, and they both vow to leave within the year. Increasing misfortune awaits Antonio, but when tragedy strikes before the year is up he begins to see how he can escape for good.