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A Dutch family left Holland in 1980 to transform a four hundred year old monastery, located in a remote village in Portugal, into a home, artists’ workshop, and nature preserve. 

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A Dutch family left Holland in 1980 to transform a four hundred year old monastery, located in a remote village in Portugal, into a home, artists’ workshop, and nature preserve. Unlike conventional documentaries, Convento’s story is told with a continuously moving camera that tracks through the landscape and invites the audience into the daily lives of these extraordinary people.  Each family member simultaneously nourishes the coexistence of art and nature.  The audience travels just behind the camera, transported to a new place to witness this coexistence for themselves.   

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Artist Christiaan Zwanikken resurrects deceased wildlife by reanimating the skeletal remains with servomotors and robotics.  He breeds these new species in a 400-year-old monastery in Portugal, restored from ruins and converted into his laboratory. 

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Dutch kinetic artist Christiaan Zwanikken resurrects the deceased local wildlife by reanimating the skeletal remains with servomotors and robotic engineering.  He breeds these new species in a 400-year-old monastery located in a remote village in Portugal. It has been restored from ruins and reborn into his family's home, artists’ workshop, and nature preserve.  Filmed entirely in Portugal, Convento’s camera is almost perpetually in motion, tracking through the monastery and its landscape, transporting the audience into the daily lives of these extraordinary people. Each family member simultaneously nourishes the coexistence of art and nature, documented through a series of connected micro-narratives.