Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Short film made alongside Máscaras (1976).

The story about a student who is hunted by the voices of her classmates.

Lola and Elle are two design students whose friendship slowly deepens into intimacy. When Elle invites Lola home for dinner, things shift. The apartment is warm, her mother is kind, and Elle is charming. But in the basement, something waits. Something on all fours. Something Elle calls family.

On a Christmas Eve that quickly spirals out of control, a group of friends finds themselves embroiled in an unlikely mystery that no one quite knows how to solve. Amid absurd suspicions, embarrassing revelations, and an investigation as improvised as it is chaotic, Christmas Eve dinner transforms into a game of accusations where everyone seems to have something to hide.

During the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Brazil’s independence, a Brazilian diplomat and a Portuguese historian escort the heart of Emperor Dom Pedro I, confronting colonial traumas, identity crises, and the delirium of a country in turmoil.

In 2000, Susana de Sousa Dias made Criminal Case 141/53, about the sisters Isaura Borges Coelho and Hortênsia Campos Lima, who resisted a 1950s’ Portuguese law that prohibited nurses from marrying. Supported by a montage of archival material, the film told their story, which was shaped by the dictatorship under Salazar. Now, a quarter of a century later, De Sousa Dias returns with a sequel that questions and reflects on her earlier film. She describes how she first encountered the archive material that led her to the sisters’ story in the early 1990s.

Leni and Mandemba are two fishermen from the island of Bubaque, in Guinea-Bissau. The filmmaker follows them for a whole day as they prepare their tools, gather bait and go fishing. A filmmaker and two fishermen who shape and form a landscape and a choreography of gestures on an afternoon of fishing.

A very small spider descends from the ceiling, three meters high. It lands on the pillow, drops a little further, gets lost in a fold of the sheets, and reappears, crossing the entire blanket, walking over the orange flower patterns. I slept with a huge fear of falling, like when I was a child and they laid me down surrounded by chairs. At my grandparents’ house, all the clocks are stopped.

In a weathered corner of Ostende's industrial zone, migrant workers gather for their daily cigarette break, where shared smoke and quiet conversations reveal the poetry in their hard-worn lives.

One fateful night, something seems to disturb the wheel of time. Death sets out to investigate this curious case...

As a refugee camp reaches breaking point, a group of young voices defy silence, while a crucial vote in Europe teeters between compassion and complicity.

Coverage of the effects of the floods in Constância.

The launching of the destroyer ‘Tejo’ in the river Tagus – shipyard Rocha de Conde d'Óbidos, Lisbon, with the presence of the President of the Ministers Council.

Corredor is a tribute to the event of the same name, dedicated to underground culture and techno music. Now discontinued, the film aims to travel through the echoes that can still be heard.

A land is made and created by its inhabitants and by what they do and leave behind. In Melgaço, we meet three people who share the same passion. Each one has different stories and values, but they all come together in the same place and on a four-wheeled vehicle. Thanks to this passion, every year people gather in Melgaço with the same love and the same desire to leave memories and see something old come to life.

The voices that emerge from the shadows of words scrape the liquid skin of memory. Fragments of tradition in breaths of silence. Living bodies that walk through time Only to imagine. Slow fluidity, creation that transforms between gestures and absences. The changes do not scream—they whisper. Now the horizon shaped by eternity and dirt flows slowly. It transforms. It persists.

Pedro is an excellent editor, but since he started living on his own, he has been unable to deal with his procrastination issues. One morning, Pedro receives a very important job for his career, which has a five-day deadline, and is forced to face his problems.

Trapped in his aging body, Francisco embarks on a silent journey between two worlds. His inner struggle is a confrontation between old age and loneliness, set against the backdrop of Lisbon’s suburban reality, which he refuses to accept. In the midst of this battle, he finds solace in an unexpected correspondence: a letter from Esmeralda, the former owner of the apartment where he now lives out of favor, bringing him a new sense of hope.

A documentary about a man and his craft, Manuel Viana, who has been repairing bicycles since he was 11 years old in a workshop located in the city center of Lagos.

Daniela lives trapped by responsibilities and a critical father, dreaming of becoming a theremin player. Her daily crossings of the Tejo soothe her, while she imagines a different life. One day, a mysterious box could be the key to unlocking her desires.

Nteregu is a visual and sound poem that tells and sings the story of music in Guinea-Bissau. From Tina to the culture of mandjuandadi, from the griots’ villages to dance floors in Europe, this is a centuries-long journey that unveils where modern Guinean music comes from and where it is headed. Ancestral musical instruments and never-before-seen testimonies reveal the power of music in Guinea-Bissau as a means of transmission (Nteregu) of values and knowledge across generations.This film also shows how women, through Tina, the traditional Guinean instrument, laid the cultural foundations of a nation, breaking down cultural differences and uniting many ethnic groups through music.

Five students look for witch stories that haunt the memory of a portuguese countryside village.

A young woman dealing with her childhood's trauma in the form of a folktale. She always runs away from a big black wolf untill she reminds of her grandmother's advice.

Making of "hortelã", MARO's latest acoustic album.

A self-described collective "cinepoem" involving the inhabitants of Tourém (Montalegre).

Chã das Caldeiras, at an altitude of 2000m, is a town within the caldera of the Fogo volcano, in Cape Verde. In the last eruption in 2015, the town was almost completely destroyed.

A short film showcasing the landscapes of Castelo Branco, Beira Alta.

Almost 30% of the population of Porto lives in council districts. It is a special experience when districts become small towns with their own customs and traditions. However, they are also victims of stigmatization and bias. "Neighbourhoods" is a look at the reality of five council districts of Porto. From the eastern to the western parts of the city, we watch and listen to the inhabitants of those neighborhoods: Rainha D. Leonor, Cerco, Duque de Saldanha, S. João de Deus, Santa Luzia and Maceda.

Nonon is an orphan who left Mali and the Kaye region at the age of 14 to go to Europe, and who is today, after crossing the desert, in transit in the mountains of Morocco. We discover his terrible living conditions in the forests surrounding Nador, his daily life as well as that of sub-Saharans, the different paths they can take to get around the ban on entering the city of Nador, to escape the multiple roundups, the destruction of the camps in the mountains... Finally, we see the barrier crossed...

A landscape remembers how it developed into the mountain it is today. From glacial tongues to raging wildfires, the story is a reminiscence of the human impact on landscapes.

Manuel, a waiter, after being denied his request to leave work early to meet his girlfriend, meets his colleague José for a cigarette break, where they talk about their current situation.

A dive into moments of concentration and muscular tension typical of the world of sport. Through intrusive thoughts and layers of everyday life, the film approaches the personal and metaphorical dimensions of overcoming. Starring ordinary people from the Parisian suburbs of Noisy le Sec, the film culminates with the passing of an unofficial torch, as a symbol of dream and collective resistance.

It is a documentary that portrays the life of a man of Romanian nationality, ex-drug addict and ex-homeless. Christian Georgescu was born in 1978 in Romania and it was in Porto where he was reborn. It is in this city that he rewrites his history as an Activist and Peer Educator. The charisma that characterizes him joins the inspiration of wanting to bring change to the lives of those who today are going through much of what was their past.

A girl is alone in her bedroom when she is suddenly visited by a ghostly creature.