Les grandes ondes (à l’ouest)

April 1974, two journalists from swiss radio are sent to Portugal to report on swiss cooperation in this country. Bob, a technician near retirement, goes with them in his trusted VW Combi. There however, nothing happens as planned. Between cooperation projects left abandoned and those which serve as caution for the colonialist ideas of Salazar’s supporters, tension reaches a summit between the feminist Julie and Cauvin the shrewd war reporter. The efforts of Pelé, their young Portuguese translator, is no good : the little team gives up. But the wind of history throws the VW Combi in the heart of the Carnation Revolution, transforming Cauvin in a people’s hero even though he doesn’t speak a word of portuguese, Julie in a passionara not as free as she thought and Pelé in a motivated revolutionary, but allergic to carnations. As for Bob, there is no way that the sexual freedom claimed by the european youth since May 68 passes him by during this beautiful night of April 74. When democracy walks by, one must be ready to grasp it at all costs, even at the expense of civic disobedience, a capital sin for the Swiss.