At just 20 years old, Patrick (Hugo Fernandes) leads a rather dissolute life in Paris – filled with drugs, fights and sex with drunk women, which he records on video and later posts online. When he ends up being questioned by the police after an illegal party, it turns out that Patrick's real name is Mário and that he was kidnapped in Portugal when he was eight years old. The young man has been missing for 12 years. Illegal videos on his laptop give only a glimpse of what happened during this time. The fact that Patrick himself was once sexually abused mitigates his punishment. The young man is sent to his original family in Portugal for rehabilitation. But he remains a stranger in his own family. When his various life plans threaten to fall apart completely, Patrick decides to confront the dark years of his youth. Without wasting many words, director Gonçalo Waddington's feature film debut tackles a highly controversial topic—depicted from the perspective of a victim who becomes a perpetrator himself. In quiet shots and sparse dialogue, unspeakable deeds become the subject and the wounds inflicted over the years gradually become visible. Patrick has won several awards at various festivals for this detached but impressive approach. “Gonçalo Waddington and his leading actor Hugo Fernandes have achieved something remarkable. They tell the story of child abuse and its lifelong repercussions without any sensationalism and without the false sentimentality that is so typical of many television productions. The result is a portrait of an abused person that rejects all simple answers.” (Sascha Westphal, on: epd-film.de) "The main character's inner turmoil is already laid out in the script. Patrick doesn't talk much. He prefers to observe and remain silent. But the silence is deceptive. Behind it lurks something threatening and frightening. The look behind which Hugo Fernandes hides this danger cannot be written in a script. Nor can the tension of his character, which threatens to break out at any moment. And then there are Patrick's actions, which reveal how his old self before the kidnapping struggles with the self he has become through his experiences since then. Meticulously, even manically, he shaves his body so that even as a 20-year-old he looks like an innocent child. He repeatedly calls his kidnapper because he cannot get away from him. Scenes like these are more powerful and impressive than any act of violence, which Gonçalo Waddington wisely omits. His film leaves enough gaps for each viewer to fill in with their own interpretations. You don't have to see the abuse to understand its impact on the protagonist. And you understand why Patrick's longing for closeness – wonderfully tenderly portrayed together with fellow actress Alba Baptista – is doomed to fail. In the end, liberation from this conflict is only logical." (Falk Straub, on: spielfilm.de)