Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

A very unique and personal vision of this emblematic square in the city of Porto. A film of night shadows; a window on the invisible...

Just as Christ carried his cross, Sério Fernandes carries one of his paintings between the ribeira de Gaia and the Palácio de Cristal in Porto. A journey through a dionysian and authentic “second Porto”, an “underground” Porto, a sidewalk Porto; so close and so far from that velvety and bourgeois “first Porto”...

Something I Do Not Want is a day dream trip around the figure of Vasco Diogo, using only a mobile phone and several artificial intelligence apps.

A strange dive into the night. Sami is returning home after six months in Italy. Between nightmares and dreams, he leaves behind an abandoned construction work, visions of ghosts and a mysterious sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.

The experiences of those who bring the region's ceramic factories to life are the raw material of the documentary, accompanied by the recording of testimonies, images and sounds from the universe of clay and pottery, materials that gave rise to a journey through time.

When Noemí left Escarigo in the 1960s in pursuit of a better life, she left behind a village whose streets were filled with life and joy. Now, silence reigns over this rural portuguese town. We follow Noemí on a trip back to her hometown, which she barely recognizes. With the help of the few locals and her longtime friends, Noemí dives into her past as she tries to cope with the loss of loved ones.

There are sinuous borders in the millimetres of tension between what’s visible to the human eye and what can only be seen through the machine. Surrounded by volumes of data, dances of accurate injections and light beams, we lose track of the time spent here.

“Happy ending” is part of the ongoing project “Glossolalia”, which proposes the construction of a shared place through the subversion of the road-movies’ individualistic tradition. Taking as a motto a fiction about a couple who finds an idea of home in their car trips, the video explores a place of duration within the non-representable space beyond the resolution of a happy ending (a convention that marks the end of the dramatic interest of a story). Through repetition and loop, it plays with the archetype of the tunnel (space of passage and transformation), remaining in an intermediate state, between escapism and ecstasy, light and darkness, speed and continuity. Unforeseen elements such as reflections and optical effects, radio sounds and interferences, laughter and breathing, become symbols of being on a journey, where directions are influenced by improvisation and attention is tuned, permeable to the elastic time of a shared experience.

A love story set around the nurturing landscapes of Arrábida.

An episode of the series Os Direitos das Crianças directed to the juvenile public, made for RTP.

The life of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, his roots, his artistic career and his work.

Azar Na Praia is a film by André Santos and Mariana Machado.

An original idea by Gil Gonçalves.

Three voices debate the story of an uprising, while the camera searches for evidence in the backyard. The viewer is left to decide whether to see, believe or act.

When a former basketball coach is forced by court order to come out of retirement to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities, together they go further than they ever imagined.

The nostalgia for a past that no longer exists and the attempt to accept the natural course of life lead Gonçalo, a former drummer of a recently disbanded indie band, to finish an unfinished song while struggling with his feelings.

The life and work of a discouraged man. A man who just wants to be left alone.

Through Lydia's life, we see the different dimensions that pesticides cause on an individual and collective level.

A series of three short films about the mining village of São Pedro da Cova.

Joana is married to Luís. She lives in an abusive relationship and is isolated from the outside world.

When we ask ourselves about loneliness and about man, we started to cross the bridge for understanding both. This film explores and portrays the cruel beauty of loneliness and age-effect evident in the landscapes and places of the Trás-os-Montes region (Portugal).

A medicine doctor is studying the most advanced scientific theories, aiming at bringing back to life the dead, provided the corpse has not entered a state of physical decomposition. With madmen and terminally ill patients around, he has not much difficulty in finding guinea-pigs.

A cinematographic adaptation of the piece Poema, by the Portuguese thinker Tomás Maia. An audiovisual poiesis, “presented in a double movement, of flux and reflux, descending and ascending, in a veiled revisitation of the myth of Orpheus—but removing from the myth the male figure (and, therefore, any heroism) and transforming Eurydice into poetry itself, which, unlike the dead, rises above the underground” (from the piece’s original synopsis). A short movie about death, life and art.

A road movie that explores the synergy of hardcore music and dance, resonating with emotions of alienation and defiance.

This documentary takes us on a journey through Angolan popular music; starting with such legendary greats from the late 40s as Liceu Vieira Dias and Ngola Ritmos, right up to the present day. The voices and sounds of the most influential performers along the generations play against the back drop of Angola’s political and social history.

Batalha is the most emblematic venue in 'Invicta' (a common nickname for the city of Porto) and one of the most important in the country. It witnessed the entire 20th century in Portugal: born shortly before the regicide, it grew alongside the young Republic, resisted 40 years of dictatorship, celebrated the April 25th Revolution, and witnessed Portugal's entry into the European Economic Community. It survived censorship, experienced various revolutions, and technological changes, but succumbed to the lack of audience, even at the turn of the 21st century. Two decades later, Batalha is undergoing renovations and will reopen its doors in 2021. Will it be ready to face the challenges of the 21st century?

1991 performance by Enigma

In exile, a Brazilian child develops strategies to rise.

An encounter, in Lisbon, with Colombian filmmaker Luis Ospina (1949- 2019). He talks about the troubled modern history of Colombia, while remembering his life and work: his childhood, the early affinity with cinema, his time in the United States, his comeback to his birth country, and the foundation of Grupo de Cali, alongside Carlos Mayolo and Andrés Caicedo.

“Saudade” portrays the intimate relationship between Portugal and Cuba, two cultures that are both geographically separated and inextricably linked by the ocean. Visual art and performance merge to express the grounding presence of the earth and its capacity to help us understand our shared humanity across distances. The film asks: What is recorded in the land of the one who leaves for the sea? What does it mean to leave one place and arrive in another, greeting a new land while carrying the old?

A poetic exploration of three generations of women, sometimes close, sometimes distant, but always connected.

There are infinite places to travel in the subconscious.