João Silva doesn’t always know how to pronounce his first name so that it’s understood by his interlocutors, nor what to make of the legacies that weigh on him; somewhere between passing on his parents’ Portuguese culture and integrating into Quebec society, he deals with the oblivion of his mother tongue and nostalgia for a country he’s never visited.
L’héritier recounts the construction of a second-generation immigrant’s identity and his trajectory, full of promise and hesitation, tinged by the abyss of social anxiety and the power of filial love.
School, shame, religion, philosophy, language, the world of work, social life, Seleção games, memories: the quest for self here follows the back-and-forth of hope, multiplies trial and error, embraces all the confusion of existence.