Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

In the mid-20th century, in the Madeira region, rock climbers brave dangerous mountains to build levadas and settle there, with courage and dreams of emigration, while facing an unjust colonial regime.

A boy lives surrounded by an oppressive cacophony of sounds, within a dysfunctional family. A day at the beach might be the long-expected opportunity for a break from a hellish existence. The parents, the boy, and his sister put everything they can in the family car and drive away. The boy dreams of playing with his bucket and shovel in the sand, by the sea, but it is not easy to reach the destination. If they arrive at the beach, will they enjoy a peaceful day or will they face something unexpected?

Ignácio Swarzinski vel Francczak is a Pole who arrived in Brazil in the late 1920s, intending to live and work on the property of another Pole, already established in the country. There, Ignácio fell in love with his boss's daughter, but his love was neither reciprocated nor accepted by her family. Devastated, his disillusionment leads Ignácio to commit a crime unprecedented in Brazil: he kills, dismembers, roasts, and eats parts of his boss's body. The crime occurred on February 17, 1930, and earned him the nickname "Come-Gente."

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

An original idea by Gil Gonçalves.

A movie by Sério Fernandes and his students.

A film made by Sério Fernandes and his students

The audiovisual version of Getúlio Abelha's album "Marmota".

A bar owner entices his customers with a giant sign reading Bar Regional. The National Bar pops up opposite. So, the former puts World Bar, its competitor puts Universal Bar, then all its customers flee to the original bar, now with a Bar Schweppes sign. This film won the Advertising Film Award at Annecy in 1967.

Produced for the "Favolistica Europeia" series, the film evokes sea voyages of Portuguese navigators at the beginning of the 16th century. It is one of the most ambitious works of this period of Portuguese animation and describes an Atlantic Ocean plunged into constant darkness and inhabited by terrible monsters that could sink any ship in its fearsome waves and bubbling waters.

Two boys meet during a film workshop in the Azores. Apparently coming from different realities, they begin an unlikely relationship of mutual curiosity, challenging the stability of their convictions about bravery and tenderness.

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

The eyes of a boy awake at dawn recorded the day. The dream of many fueled his own. João, the boy, walked through the Revolution hand in hand with Freedom, searching for his mother. João, the boy, ran through a black-and-white Lisbon painted only by the red that chance called carnation. The red that turned green with hope!

Film by Children from E.B. Monsenhor Miguel de Oliveira

Alapadu is a village in the Amazon rainforest in the interior of Suriname, which in the 1950s was a Dutch colony. In a film produced by the Diaconal Institute of the Dutch Reformed Church, which ended up in the archives of the Eye Film Museum, the inhabitants are still referred to as 'Indians.' However, the central figure in the film is a young white missionary who works there as a nurse. She dresses wounds, hands out medicine for worm infections, gives advice here and there, and teaches children the basics of Dutch so they can "have some command of the language" if they have go to the capital city, Paramaribo.

What happens in 2055 Portugal, in a reconstructed Lisbon after the earthquake in 2013, now under attack from aliens?

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

A short movie inspired by Dragon Ball Z.

Consumed by intrusive thoughts, Alice uses an online forum to express her fantasies, several users follow and react to her problematic passion daily. Upon unexpected news, she is faced with the last chance to make the first move.

Conceição Matos was born in 1936 in São Pedro do Sul. When she was just three years old she moved to Barreiro to a "wooden shack" that she shared with her parents and siblings in Bairro das Palmeiras. While still a teenager, she joined the Democratic Unity Movement (MUD - Juvenil) and began her political activity that would lead her to go underground in 1962, having already joined the Portuguese Communist Party. She was arrested by the political police (PIDE) for the first time in 1965 and was mercilessly tortured without ever having spoken out or denounced her comrades. This film, told in the first person, recounts these times in prison and the trial of her torturers after April 25, 1974.

Was Europe asleep? Has it woken up since it decided to adhere to a sleepwalking idea?

A woman struggling with the constant pressure to change her lifestyle.

Draaikolk (ˈdraːi̯.kɔlk, vortex in Dutch). Here the Vortex will not be the rapid movement of a spiralling fluid but the spirality of human despair. The whirlwind of thoughts and problems that exist both in the human as a singular being and in the human as a race, which leads us to seek a void, a centre, where we imagine there is balance and calm despite all the destruction that surrounds us.

Portugal in the 60’s. A young country woman finds an intriguing object in the fields: a television set. She decides to take it home, soon to become, with her boyfriend, bewitched by it. With a growing power coming from the tv set, they are consumed in a hypnotic ordeal with tragical consequences.

Journey through an endless night leading to unknown.

In an apocalyptic world the routine of the days and hours are the only company of a survivor. He deals with the difficulties of solitude, hunger and fear which rule his life and faces the threats around him. What are those noises that disturb his peace? Who haunts him? Who is he chasing?