Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

What if the traces of movement became visible? Observation of movements that oscillate matter in behavioral patterns that persist in time and space, creating impacts in all dimensions.

A documentary about my grandfather, Ricardo José de Almeida Júnior. For all those who, like me, were not lucky enough to know him.

Little Syria follows the quest of a brother, his sister and her boyfriend, trapped between a Syria from which they ran for their lives, and a Europe which seems at times to embrace them and at others to push them back. In the time of making of this film, more than 14 million Syrians have been forced to leave their homes. Syrians asked for asylum in more than 130 countries. Reem, Mohammed and Yasser try to make sense of what is left of the Syrian Revolution. Little Syria is a confidential insight into the invisible lives of Syrian refugees.

A 19th century Portuguese wine magnate must prevail over politicians, phylloxera, patriarchy, and especially her own children to ensure the survival of her family's business empire.

In a small hill near the village of Gerês, called Penedo da Freira, lies a tombstone that appears to mark a site of passion between a Portuguese nun and a Spaniard soldier near the end of the 18th century. The legend described in the stone becomes a target of obsession for a young director as he plunges two actors into reliving its words.

A political leader orchestrates an evil plot to allow him to rule his people forever. He deceives them and chops off their thumbs. The people fall into a cycle of hardship and helplessness.

Sitting in a tavern, after having had lunch with an old friend, a man remembers anecdotes about his childhood spent in a popular Lisbon neighbourhood.

The line between dream and reality blurs when a man starts having recurring nightmares of an entity in black with a long chain hunting him down.

Valentine has only one: to go to Luxembourg to see his father. To achieve this, he allies himself with Justino, a wise old man with any answer on the tip of his tongue. A tale about a little apprentice and his demanding master.

This short film portrays the essence of the feminine realm, weaving a tapestry of symbolism inspired by the evocative poetry found within Nikki Tajiri's book "She Dreams When She Bleeds." Known for her artful exploration of "Period Poetry," a term that encapsulates works that gracefully utilize the concept of menstruation as a poignant anchor for expressing themes and emotions intertwined with femininity—emotions ranging from solitude to the profound bonds of unity.

A young boy goes outside after spending the last 3 hours watching The Godfather only to find out everyone is gone and a zombie apocalypse broke out.

A part of Porto’s nightlife history is revealed. In this work, the artist draws on her extensive archive of video recordings of Porto’s artistic and cultural landscape, which she has captured over the last 26 years, to focus on some of the city’s nightclubs that haven’t survived the years. A work commissioned by Batalha Centro de Cinema.

Uma sombra é um espelho. // A shadow is a mirror.

Chronicles of rural life, misadventures from the past century, fights one must win to muster misery and resistance against servitude and wage labor in the South of Portugal.

Visions of past decades haunt him. His one eye, centered in his head, swivels schizophrenic, not knowing what to focus on. Connected to the past and the future by the same cable, information overflows and metamorphoses into something timeless. Fragments, colors, images, violence, pleasure appear. The system is pushed to its limit, countdown to meltdown. Frequencies intersect, add, subtract. The RGB translation subsystem starts to focus on a single spectrum, a final electronic spasm to prevent self-destruction. 666 THz. The color spectral comparison program is started to determine the signal. Blue.

The melancholy of the young daughter of a wealthy family and her constant attempts of escaping through complex reveries.

If a ray fish dreams…

A couple has a conversation along different rooms of the house they share.

The viewer is immersed in the daily life of mothers and kids living in prisons and custody institutions for inmates with their children.

Based on archive material, Manthia Diawara organizes an imagined dialogue between Léopold Senghor, one of the founders of the concept of Negritude, and Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

A football player and part-time fisherman starts to clean the beach he lives next to.

In this film people appear, but only as one factor amongst others. Callused hands sow, weed, build and rake; stooped backs bring in the harvest.

She is Ukrainian. He is Portuguese. They met in Viseu, the Portuguese city at the crossroads of old Romanesque paths. Every street, every corner tells the medieval history and stories of broken hearts here. You can leave Viseu, but actually you would have never come back from it.

In the dark, the flashing lights were brutally invasive while I kept searching for the bodies through the camera.

Acaiaca is based on a legend about a sacred cedar that was chopped down by the Portuguese, which caused the destruction of the nearby Puri Indian tribe in just one night. The Legend of Acaiaca was portrayed in the novel Acayaca 1729, by 19th Century Brazilian writer Joaquim Felicio dos Santos. The song was recorded in April/2017 by Urca Bossa Jazz, and it is one of the last works of percussionist Laudir de Oliveira (1976 Grammy Award Winner). The videoclip with narration in Portuguese was released in July/2017. This new production received an opening text and English narration by Mac Margolis.

A real test to the relationship of two brothers. "Guardião" accompanies the conflict between State and fraternal love.

Tale of a man searching to record the silence.

Julio finds a place at Fred's house. The roommate relationship between the two triggers an unstoppable new feeling for Julio. Will it become his prison or will it set him free?

Places suspended in the memory of 5 LGBT people in São Paulo are revisited during the pandemic.

A documentary that features 7 young LGBTQIA+ artists who talk about their realities, dreams and how art influences their journey of acceptance and transformation.