They only want one thing: to get out! Andreia to find the father of her unborn child, Pedro and Ricardo to have a breath of fresh air and earn a bit of money in the process. The three belong to the countless lost youths who live their lives at a special Lisbon facility for difficult or abused teenagers - trapped in a life that is not theirs, without rights, without love and without hope. And so they break out, again and again, and rebel against the circumstances, straying aimlessly through the night, which becomes their only friend.
Originally planned as a documentary, Teresa Villaverde accompanies the protagonists a little bit into their aimlessness, thereby not only giving us glimpses of their unfortunate past, but also confronting the harsh contemporary circumstances, to which the youths are exposed both outside and inside the walls of the facility, and where there is no space for romantic dreams. The result is a powerful, disturbing and controversial film about a loneliness, which primarily derives its quiet impact from the natural performance of its young actors. The premier of Os mutantes at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 finally also made Villaverde known to international audiences.
