Portugal's SIC launches "Lucia of Fatima" / "Lucia de Fatima," a 3-episode drama miniseries that can also be aired as a movie, produced in 2023. "Lucia of Fatima" transports audiences to the beginning of the 20th century, allowing us to follow the girl's journey behind the religious figure. During her childhood, the prophetess of Fatima was imprisoned, subjected to cruel interrogations, separated from her family, and deprived of the right to her own identity. Audiences will understand her life through Madalena, a fictional character who becomes her assistant after a dramatic personal story. Lúcia resisted everything and kept her story alive. As the secret keeper, maybe she'll pass on the 4th secret to Madalena.
Lúcia dos Santos was just ten years old when she lived a mystical experience that would become known in the history of world religion as the Apparitions of Fátima. In 1917, Lúcia and her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, claimed to have seen Our Lady while herding animals in the field. Lúcia was the only one to speak to the Virgin, unwittingly becoming the keeper of the secret. The apparitions of the three Little Shepherds culminated in the Miracle of the Sun, which took place on October 13, 1917, in Cova da Iria, precisely as had been predicted by the children. Thousands of people witnessed the phenomenon and testified that they had seen "the sun dancing" at noon, as journalist Avelino de Almeida recorded. The nature of the event remains disputed. However, during the revelation on July 13 of the same year, Lúcia asked Our Lady for irrefutable proof of the veracity of the apparitions, and the Virgin replied that she should wait until October 13 for the demonstration of the prodigies. And so it was. Although some argue that the phenomenon could have been of meteorological origin or even a collective suggestion, it remained in history as a divine manifestation.
Portugal was immersed in a dramatic social, economic, and political situation. The austerity of poverty was combined with typhus, smallpox, pneumonic flu outbreaks, and the contested national participation in the First World War. The Republic was taking its first steps, leaving support for anti-clericalism and pinching the power of the Church in a rural, illiterate, and devout country. At first, the children's miraculous story began to be poorly received by everyone. The Patriarchate of Lisbon even banned the Clergy from participating in demonstrations. Years later, the cult was legitimized by the Church and widely used as a weapon against the secularization of Portugal. But we would wait until 1930 for the Bishop of Leiria to give credit to the apparitions. Fátima then consolidated itself as the ideological and symbolic arena of the Estado Novo, a political regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar based on the God, Homeland, and Family tripod.