At 63 years old and almost retired, Joaquim is forced to follow job centre rules so he can collect unemployment benefits. Despite knowing that he will never return to active life, he must go from company to company asking for stamps to attest that he is looking for work. In these trips he reminisces about his life as an immigrant to the U.S., where he worked as a cab driver in New York and witnessed numerous Wall Street crashes.

Dir. Susana Nobre - 70min - 2021 - Portugal

"I went to work at a New Opportunities centre with the goal of making a film. The office where I worked was in Vila Franca de Xira, a city located 30 km away from Lisbon, which had been heavily industrialised and was now on the final stretch of an industrialisation process that had begun in the 1980s. From my desk, I watched dozens of workers who lost their jobs during that period. That was when I met Joaquim." Susana Nobre talking about the genesis of Jack's Ride on the TrueStoryFilm.blog https://loom.ly/7tNMs7Q

"With his high pompadour and a penchant for boxy leather jackets and bold patterned shirts, Joaquim Calçada looks like he has wandered straight out of a 1970s movie. His face, though not conventionally handsome, has a kind of cinematic quality that could have promised a fruitful career as a tough-guy character actor in a bygone era before Instagramified prettiness took over film casting. Perhaps inspired by Calçada’s distinctive looks, Susana Nobre’s intriguing docufiction brings a playful dose of smoke and mirrors to a life story that is far from glamorous." - Guardian

"accompanied by beautiful music and photography, he recalls the days in America when he drove for Jackie Kennedy and Muhammad Ali, participated in a crime and probably acquired his Elvis Presley exterior, which he might never abandon. ...a beautiful meditation on time and work" - Visions du Reel

"plays beautifully with the boundary between reality and fiction." - Berlinale

"Modern Portugal might not have any more space for, or need of Joachim, but he’s still there, part of the landscape and community. And the world is richer for it." - Ubiquarian

"Fact, fabrication and the passage of time blur in director Susana Nobre's beguiling blend of social commentary and mellow memory piece." - Variety