Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Lisbon, 1943. While ordering the departure of trains loaded with essential products towards Nazi Germany, Salazar’s government establishes the rationing of goods. In Portugal, thousands of workers are protesting against ‘hunger wages’. Paulo and Luísa, antifascist resistants, have lived together for several years. They are preparing to secretly or ganize a strike at the stowage. “At 6 at Adelino’s cafe.” In 20 years of militancy, Paul was never late. But, as the day progresses, the contradictions deepen. “Fog” is a free adaptation of “Fog in the City”, short story by Mário Dionísio.

...am I not the rock, the volcanic matter in eruption...the impertinent smallness deep in the fissure of stone...the steadfast continuum of form in evolution...

Surbiles, women who, between dusk and dawn, using drugs or in their sleep, abandoned their bodies to enter the homes of children, intent on sucking their blood. In the villages of central Sardinia, they were once blamed for the sudden and inexplicable deaths of children.

On a late night call, two strangers gain the courage to be intimate with one another. Deep truths about alienation and the human need to connect are unveiled through the point of view of a transgender person and an Afghanistan veteran.

Xampy is a popular character in São Paulo's gay night life and electronic scene. He decides to tell us all about his rocky past, bullying for being feminine and about his time in a South American prison, as well as the fun and friendships he gained.

Three unusual paintings played by the director that literally tests her limits in this encounters with the landscape of São Miguel, in Azores. The power that emanates from the filmed landscape is as seductive as the risky shape of the encounter between image and sound. A limit-film for an inventive Portuguese artist.

Three people in a car, who will stay there the longest, wins the car.

Within one image, another one is always hiding. Wordless and using only archive footage, "Still Life" aims to rediscover and delve into the opacity of images (news, war footage, propaganda documentaries, photos of political prisoners and never seen before rushes) made during the 48 years (1926-1974) of Portuguese dictatorship in order to foster new interpretations.

An ironic comedy to the sports world about the corrupt gears of football. As goalkeeper, figure a dwarf...

Fallen to an aquatic world, they move ineffably in a dense, clear atmosphere as if it was their first autonomous moment.

Boy meets girl. The daily life of Dino and Helena is difficult and the grief is growing in a way that encloses them while they search for an urgent solution.

One man (Tony Simões) sees that he doesn't know what to do or how to go on with his life. Many reasons that can lead to incredible acts. The insistence of this man to fight something that is unknown leads him to an idea. Good? Bad? Only he will know! But one thing we can be sure. He will do it!

Audiovisual essay about walking through the streets of Lisbon. It explores discrimination and moving through spaces where one is not welcome.

The public rushes around the Minister to visit, as at the zoo, a Guinean village reconstituted in a park of Lisbon: daily activities, Muslim prayer, women with bare breasts. The camera pins faces, attitudes, busts. Then accompanies a dance to the sound of marimbas and drums. To conclude this exotic visit, kings of the tribe are decorated by a general, under the bust of the Republic.

In a small village in the north of Portugal, Agostinho endures the imprisonment of his routine. One day, he suffers a strange seizure leaving the factory where he works at the night shift. Unable to explain the reason for his condition, he returns home, to his girlfriend, to his friends. Subduing his dreams and concerns, Agostinho awaits for the night to come and, with it, another shift.

Employee exploited by her employer changes her life by winning the lottery.

Bernardino Fernandes emigrated to Canada in the sixties. Over two decades he filmed hundreds of Super 8 reels, organizing them methodically and obsessively. The Everlasting Man ends an old process, transforming Bernardino's urge of cinema into a film about the images of his memory.

Pedro Costa's segment from "O Estado do Mundo".

The rapid turning of a light draws a circle. In the space bound by its line unravels an archive of postcards sent between the island of Madeira and the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The figures carved into the Knife by the Sap of the Banana Trees circulates between a fictional colonial memory, and science-fiction.

A fisherman arrives at the beach, he comes alone. Other fishermen appear, they also arrive alone. They look at each other, they are dispersed on the beach, with the lines of the reeds in the sea, which united them in that place. In this documentary, we follow the arrivals and departures of different fishermen from Praia do Segundo Torrão, in Trafaria. We see the setting of the rods, the placement of the bait, and the launches. José António and Fernando are friends and know that beach well. We see and hear the different interactions between the fishermen, the greetings, the sharing. The beach is filled with gentlemen and fishing rods. We wait for the fish with the fishermen. We contemplate the sea.

The story is about a young ghost starting her training, she needs to ask for help from a Helper to get back to Earth on Halloween and be reunited with her family before the portal closes.

An experimental documentary about the largest artistic occupation in Latin America. An affective portrait of the early days of the occupation, which goes from the libertarian and utopian congregation to chaos.

A Noite de Walpurgis is a fantastic tale by Hugo Rocha, admittedly inspired by Goethe's Faust. The narrator-protagonist reveals a story told to him by a third person. Here the third person is an old peasant woman that the protagonist finds in a walk through the mountains, and that tells a story that in turn would have been told to her by the grandmother.

A short film that portrays a specific view upon Évora.

After the demolition of the shacks and the construction of new buildings to resettle the residents of the old Curraleira neighborhood, an empty space remained. This film is about that place, about the encounters, stories, and activities that define it.

A bronze figure declares his love to a woman, Isabel. Isabel recognises her inability to reciprocate this feeling and to surrender to this relationship. This story is staged by a Third Person, in a closed room with no time, in an atmosphere of urgent search for perfection in the performances of the two interpreters. The Third Person is, in turn, observed by a Fourth Person.

One dark sleepless night, a tormented man locks himself in a candlelit room in a desperate attempt at purging his sins, but when his reflection takes on a life of its own - he must face a terrifying truth... Sometimes, it's the devil you know.