Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

On a very cheerful pop music, this film praises the beauties of the landscapes, wildlife, modern architecture and the sweet life of the settlers. Many tourists came from nearby White Rhodesia to indulge in the pleasures of the sea, hotels, safaris. The few Mozambicans are employed to serve them. This film was shot while a few hundred kilometers to the north, tens of thousands of Portuguese soldiers faced the separatist fighters of Frelimo.

The aim of this documentary – especially in the subtitles – is to promote the benefits of civilization. The buildings and roads, built by Africans, commanded by settlers. The agricultural facilities, the hospital. Then the camera lingers with a certain fascination on dances – including warriors – and topless women. This curious documentary concludes with two “visions of the future”: a Portuguese dance of white and black schoolchildren, and the graduation of Portuguese teenagers.

Two voices talk about the impermanence of the world, question the inescapable death and remember and rethink old memories.

In a world where civilization has regressed thanks to an energy drink that can cause people to behave like zombies, three men are given the mission to steal a truck full of the stuff. But the task is not gonna be easy.

Ricardo and Joana are having their first date, and are surprised by a stranger. Trapped, they are at the mercy of this man, who may have more in common with Ricardo than he realizes.

The poetry and life of the poet Júlio Allen Vidal, told by himself.

Fake trailer for a lost Azorean space-opera rip-off film.

Juju is a young influencer very well known in Instagram. But her brother dreams about unmasking her before a legion of followers. Is everything fake on the net?

Four Portuguese poker players go on a trip to Las Vegas.

Lisbon, April 2006. The casino is inaugurated in Lisbon, in a ceremony where popular and VIP guests flocked, the first ones watching on the street and the second hanging out in a huge tent set up for this purpose; But both are waiting for the moment when the casino will open its doors. What is the difference of behaviors between the two groups present?

A couple looks to mend their relationship and build a new home in the Azores.

The Manoki people live in northwestern Mato Grosso, Brazil, and one of their main economic activities is selling pequi, a local fruit, on the highways that cross their land. During a video workshop, the youngsters decided to present aspects of their villages and the process of gathering and selling the pequi fruit to the outside world. Incited by the possibility of filming and starring in their own film, they looked for the elders in the villages in attempt to find myths about the pequi. The making of this film was a process between indigenous and non-indigenous videomakers: from the main concept and filming to the editing and post-production. All images were recorded by the Manoki videomakers.

The relationship of Santiago and Afonso is on the verge of ending. Facing a medicated depression, Santiago is a pianist in a creative block caught in an inner fight between his love for music and Afonso. At the risk of compromising his dreams and his own sanity, Santiago has to make a decision that will change the course of his life.

Marcos hosts Robert in his house – and falls in love with him. When Michael Jackson dies, Marcos goes sick and Lígia, his sister, comes to help them.

Short film by André Marques.

Pedro is a man suffering from a toxic relationship with his own mind. He lives in a world of insecurity and self-sabotage, driving him mad.

An anxious boy, waiting for a friend to play chess with, finds a girl who listens to him and tries to calm him down.

We follow two brothers on their way home after their mother's funeral. During the trip, the two relive childhood moments, open up about their lives and fight in a extremely difficult moment for both of them. They conclude the journey in a moment of contemplation, love, anger and longing.

Lili, a girl shattered to pieces, meets a voice and runs.

In a Lisbon techno club, Abdul, an immigrant worker on his very first shift, is on a video call with his wife Aliyah, who is going into labor and urging him to be present, while his new boss Maria desperately calls for his help. Caught between work’s demands and his son’s birth, Abdul grapples with the fear of losing his job and the challenge of becoming a father from afar, and fights with his strict father-in-law for his right to perform the sacred tradition of reciting the Adhan for his newborn son. The film Prayer, which explores the intersection of tradition, fatherhood, and the struggles of undocumented immigrant labor, is based on the autobiographical story of its screenwriter, Deo Mahameru. The project was created as a student film within the KinoEyes Joint European Film Masters at Lusofona University in Lisbon.

Humans are confined to their homes, and holograms carry out the tasks that once belonged to them.

Animals in the forest don’t want to play with the little restless cloud at all. However, it will be able to transform the forest and its inhabitants.

A king and his castle have been cursed and teleported to a different dimension to be obliterated.

Seara carefully documents the agricultural work of the Guineans – a heading indicates the names of the peoples. Harvesting of peanuts, coconuts, rice, cotton, followed by weaving and sewing, cutting of sugar cane and extraction; handicraft jewelry work and Muslim prayer. No white colonial settlers are shown in the frame…

Narrated in Kristang, a critically endangered creole language of Portuguese Eurasians, Saudade reimagines rituals of early Eurasian kampongs to tell a story of loss and displacement.

The film documents the official visit of the President of the Portuguese Republic, Craveiro Lopes, to Brazil, and his meeting with the President of the Republic of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek, in June 20, 1957.

A soldier from special forces with a mission.

António Escudeiro was born, grew up and worked in Angola until the day when he was forced to leave. He swore he would return. But his return home only took place thirty-two years later. "Goodbye, See You Tomorrow" is the documentary of that return, in which there is a crossing and confronting of two visual universes: the director's memories and today's Angola.

This film celebrates the life and work of Zurita de Oliveira — musician, performer, composer, and author — widely recognized as the pioneer of rock & roll in Portugal. She turned music into an act of defiance, forging a path at a time when there was little room for free-spirited women. Through songs and testimonies, the film reclaims her memory and transforms her previously unheard lyrics into a gesture of resistance, sung and performed by the women of today.

A guitar, a bacalao and a teddy bear dangle at the top of a wooden pole. The mast is slickened with grease. A group of teenagers gather. Strength and teamwork will be required, as well as some patience. After a couple of attempts at solitary climbing, the participants join forces and use their bodies to build a tower; a hand pushes down on a shoulder, a foot on a head, but all eyes are focused on the top and on snatching a prize.

The expressive power of a craft that shapes generations. Directed by Matos Barbosa, Vidros is a striking work that captures, with rare sensitivity, the harshness of labor, the intensity of hard work, and the beauty of blown glass in Oliveira de Azeméis. Set to the immersive rhythm of Django Reinhardt’s jazz, the film transforms repetitive gestures, heat, and the fragility of the material into pure cinematic expression, preserving the memory of a craft that spans generations. More than a documentary, Vidros immortalizes a memory—a visual testimony to the dedication, rhythm, and poetry hidden within the art of glassmaking, seen through the eyes of our filmmaker.