From Heights to Horizons

I have always been fascinated by the stories of my grandmother, Rosalina de Castro. Stories that shaped my childhood, transporting me to places and times I never lived, yet that became a part of me. I grew up listening to her talk about the years she spent in Angola with my grandfather, Martinho de Castro. She told me about the travels, the challenges, the friendships, and the courage of those who dared to jump from the skies. She spoke of the adrenaline of the jumps, of the freedom they found in the air.

With time, I realized that these memories were not just fragments of the past but overlapping layers—pieces of a personal story that also intertwined with a collective history. FROM HEIGHTS TO HORIZONS emerges from this weaving of time, voices, and images. The original title (“SALTO” with direct translation to English “Jump”) does not refer only to the physical act of jumping from a plane but also to the generational leap, the way memories are passed down, shifting in meaning and interpretation.

Visually, the film mirrors this fragmented construction of memory. Like a patchwork quilt, it is composed of different textures and formats—archival footage, photographs, contemporary recordings, and super8 films shot by my grandfather. Being able to use these images is more than a documentary gesture: it is a reunion. It is a way of crossing time and establishing a connection with someone I never met (my grandfather), but whose presence I feel in every frame.
This film is also a tribute to the women who challenged the skies at a time when little was allowed to them. Women like Helena Revés, Maria do Céu Penha Rodrigues, Manuela Morgado, and so many others who launched themselves into the unknown. Women who, in a conservative and colonialist Portugal, found in parachuting a rare space of freedom.

But the film is not just a retrieval of individual memories. It is also a conscious reflection on how the past reaches us. The stories I inherited are, in part, tales of adventure and achievement. But they are also stories of a time and a colonial context. This film does not impose itself as a thesis, but it does not ignore that complexity either. Through what is said and what remains in silence, FROM HEIGHTS TO HORIZONS invites us to reflect on the narratives we build, on the gaps in memory, and on the echoes that continue to resonate in the present.

This film is dedicated to my grandparents, especially to Martinho, whom I (never) met, but above all, it is a tribute to all female parachutists — to the civilians, for their boldness in an exclusively male sporting practice; to the nurses, for their courage and fearlessness in risking their lives on the battlefield.