Among roots, trunks, and branches, a father and son journey in search of a tree that speaks of time and memory. Ancestral Garden is a poetic short film about ancestry, resistance, and reconnection. Set in Recife — home to the largest concentration of Baobab trees outside Africa — the story intertwines different generations of the same family as they reunite before the power of nature and the Black history that runs through their bodies. The journey reveals gesture as ancestral language, the earth as keeper of memories, and the act of planting as a promise for the future.
Filmmaker details: Mateus Guedes
Mateus Guedes is a filmmaker and audiovisual director from Pernambuco, working across cinema, documentary, series, educational projects, and works that move between audiovisual media, music, territory, and new media. His career brings together projects connected to culture, memory, identity, and heritage, with a particular interest in narratives shaped by the relationship between characters, landscape, and territory. Beyond directing, he works across screenwriting, cinematography, editing, and music production, contributing to different stages of the audiovisual production process.