José and Pilar is a Portuguese documentary directed by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes following the last years of the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, chiefly through his relationship with his devoted wife, Pilar del Río. Highly praised by the critics and the audience, the film succeeds in portraying the tenderness, the genuine integrity and the deep humanity between the controversial writer and his wife. It gathers sequences from Madrid to Helsinki to Rio de Janeiro. It includes sequences life in Lanzarote, and during trips around the world (presenting José's books, signing autographs, making speeches) as well as their simple, transient and quotidian moments during the period José writes his "The Elephant's Journey". The film was produced by Miguel Mendes' JumpCut (Portugal), Fernando Meirelles's O2 and Pedro Almodóvar's El Deseo.

Plot

"The Elephant's Journey", in which Saramago narrates the adventures and antics of an elephant transported from the court of King John III of Portugal to that of the Austrian Archduke Maximillian, is the starting point of José and Pilar.