Sophia September 1963

In the summer of 1963, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen set off on a road trip to Greece with Agustina Bessa-Luís and her husband Alberto Luís. She left several entries about that trip in her diary. In the summer of 2023, a pair of filmmakers decides to follow in her footsteps, driving through the many Greeces: the imagined one, the shattered one, Sophia’s, their own, Odysseus’s, and no one’s. I set foot on Greek soil at 4:30. A wonderful road leading out of Patras. We drive close to the sea, between olive trees and cypresses and blue-tinged mountains. Mild heat, fragrant air. The mountains connect the land to Olympus. We stop, and I go to wash my feet, hands, arms, and face in the sea.