The second feature in António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro’s trilogy is centred on a tranquil matriarch played by Cordeiro’s mother (Ana Maria Martins Guerra). Ana occupies a universe that is both heavenly and mundane, ancient and young – as indicated by the name of her beloved cow Miranda, a gentle creature named after a historic town in Trás-os-Montes.

Accompanying a group of ethnographers on a visit to the region, Ana captures both a primaeval world and a lost unity between humans and nature, exploring notions of transhistoricity and eternal return. A word that reads the same backwards as forwards, Ana is also the name of the directors’ daughter (Ana Cordeiro Reis), who appears here as a toddler – thus announcing the film’s circular structure and its journey through the paths of birth, life and death.

Ana screens as part of Into Their Labours: The Films of António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro, a survey that includes the two other features in this trilogy: Trás-os-Montes and Rosa de Areia