Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Adaptation of a 1987 novel by Agustina Bessa Luis, a multi-generation exploration of a wealthy family with a mysterious past and a house on the island of Madeira.

Cinema and affections from life in images and what goes on outside the frame. 'Snapshots' of shootings and the present-day memory of directors, actors and technicians.

At the age of 71, a highly regarded writer, José Cardoso Pires, suffers a major stroke and loses his memory and the ability to relate to the rest of the world. Everybody seems to defy the famous author to write another novel that recounts this adventure telling his "last story", the most conclusive of his career, the one of his accidental journey to the clear shadows territory.

Film directors with hand-held cameras went to the streets of Lisbon from April 25 to May 1, 1974, registering interviews and political events of the Portuguese "Carnation Revolution", as that period would be later known.

Ricardo Monteiro is a successful television producer specialising in reality shows. He is 45 years old and he has just received an award for the most popular television show of the year, when he receives an ultimatum from his 18-year-old daughter Leonor. If he does not come home that same evening to celebrate her birthday he will never see her again. Ricardo is distracted by business or other commitments and he is too late for the last flight home. When he returns next day the apartment is empty and Leonor is gone. At first Ricardo thinks that it is only a game, but there are no phone calls or messages and after a while he gets worried and starts looking for her. He discovers that she has quit school without telling him and that she has lost all contact with her old friends. She has become a complete stranger.

Joana receives her grandfather’s ashes. At home, she finds his voyage diary that belonged to her grandfather and decides to recreate that journey. On the road, she meets Rui, who helps to find the truth about her past.

The Red Market in Macao. The red tonalities of blood, flesh, buckets and even of the fish’s eyes, carry the audience into a strange and scary universe but also beautiful and intriguing. Rodrigues and Guerra da Mata’s camera emerges like a driving force giving us the exact balance between what exists and what we see.

Inspired by Bernardo Santareno's “The Lugger” and “In the Seas of the End of the World”, this is the story of a captain of a codfish lugger, fishing in the banks of the Newfoundland who decide to risk sailing to Greenland in search of more fish. Along the way, he has to face storms, crew revolt and deal with the best and the worst of humanity when tested in extreme circumstances.

Luís phobia of water triggers a series of dreams that drag him to his death, simultaneously transferring his subconscious to his wife.

An engineer falls in love with a girl from a village. A battle between progress and tradition.

This time, in “Atlantida”, Puertas wanders through stories based on memories he keeps from his hometown, Póvoa de Varzim, wondering what happened to the aura of this city he remembers so nostalgically.

Drawing on a wide mosaic of texts from figures like Montaigne and Kafka, literary and philosophical fragments are used to illustrate and reflect on the human condition. It is a tribute to the landscape and the people who inhabit the Trás-os-Montes region of Portugal, portraying the region not just as a physical space, but as a place where imagination and reality intertwine.

The first feature in António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro’s trilogy is a journey through this almost mythical region of north-east Portugal, a tapestry of micronarratives where past, present and future become intertwined.

A man is mysteriously called to the entrance gate of an abandoned country home. As if she was coming out of a water mirror, a woman emerges from the mud at the bottom of a lake. As they approach each other, a spell is cast. Together they experience the enchantment of hallucination, memory and dreams. Reflections on the water will reveal secrets hidden in the nature of the soul. The Mirror is a recreation of Machado de Assis’ (1839-1908) homonymous tale

The difficulties and frustrations faced by a woman after adopting a baby. She tries but doesn't succeed breastfeeding the child and that changes their relationship.

Big vs. Small is a small, artful film about the curious relationship between a tiny woman who dreams of surfing a 30-metre wave. It tells the story of Joana Andrade (39) from Portugal, currently one of only two women in Europe surfing the biggest waves in the world.

Professor Hermes conducts a research on fear, for which he passes contract with a patient to live a supposedly empty mansion. He's counting on his assistant Chico Mota to play a phantom, but soon comes about that there are phantoms (plural) in there.

The story about the last man to be sentenced to death in Portugal.

A profile of the legendary soccer player Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, with footage of his career and a comprehensive list of interviews of former colleagues and other football legends, journalists, writers and politicians.

Portugal, 1938. Under the weight of the Estado Novo regime, the afforestation law transforms entire villages: communal lands are expropriated, subsistence farming withers, and the silence of the mountains echoes with contained revolt. António Claro leaves his homeland and finds refuge in the highest settlement of the Serra of Lousã, where he builds a family and a future in a place fertile, abundant in water and life. Yet prosperity conceals an underground tension: as the winds of modernity blow, neighboring villages are deserted, and his children too, depart in search of a future in the cities. Only the youngest remains, caught between the heritage of the land and the promises of progress. In him lies the fate of these lands, suspended between roots and rupture.

Two of the best fishermen in the city, umrui aka Dj Mafia and dj bullins, went to the deepest waters of the ocean and fished for sounds never heard before. Converting electronic music to simple and humble Portugueseness, we talk about our great battles, the love that people feel for great legends, and even the most ridiculous moments of the pandemic.

Inspired by the work of Bertolt Brecht and filmed in Porto's former industrial slaughterhouse, A Santa Joana dos Matadouros is a meta-cinematic essay about the labor market in times of economic crisis in Europe. The film explores the possibilities of cinema in its relationship with theater and brings together a cast of professional actors, amateurs, renowned artists from various disciplines, and a group of unemployed residents of Vale de Campanhã.

After the news of his father's death, young designer Jorge inherits the country house where he grew up in northern Portugal. Influenced by his girlfriend Ana, a successful writer, and because they have to decide the fate of the property, the couple agree to stay for a while, never imagining what that trip will trigger between them. Bereaved, Jorge is confronted with his traumatic childhood and his troubled parental relationship. Ana faces a creative block, facing the futility of her early success.

Zephyrus is a film-voyage, a fresco about Southern Portugal. A movie dealing metaphorically with the South of Portugal, singling it out as a place where various cultures came together and mix, giving birth to a singular identity, as unique as this movie itself, a mixture of fiction and documentary

Cristina is twenty years old. Her father was declared missing in action during the war in Angola many years before. One day in church the girl meets a man about fifty years old who tries various times, unsuccessfully, to make the sign of the cross. The man is called Cristovão. A few days later the two meet again. The man offers to help her look for her father. A relationship based on memories and confessions is formed between them. But soon they each return to their own solitude.

A story about character created by Reinaldo Ferreira (1897-1935), action reporter, mystery novelist and emotion journalist.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who, even when out and about, was always distracted. Eyes fixed on her phone, she didn’t notice the world around her or anyone who wanted to play. What could be done to “disoccupy” her eyes?

Summer of 1964. The professor Carlos and the couple Dário and Alda spend time together in the beach during vacations. Away from the colonial war, everything seems lost in time.

On the shores of Lisbon, Arriaga, a 25 years old boy from a middle-class family of emigrants walks alone through the silent and wrinkled streets by vices of the nightlife. Arriaga deals with his self-destructive alter ego to be accepted among the youth of his neighborhood. Everything happens in one place, everything revolves around a single moment, what is suspicious only the unexpected can unfold.

In the village of Kenoma, inside Brazil, the artisan Linnaeus tries to make a big and quixotic dream: to build a perpetual motion machine. His contract is opposed by Jerome, powerful local landowner, but he wins the aid of mysterious drifter who decides to stay in town after charmed with the beauty of the young Tari.

A 20-year veteran of the Angolan civil war returns to the capital city of Luanda where he faces the challenges of assimilation and survival.

Ceramic dildos intended to go beyond cis-normative sex toys; the forbidden love of Josefa and Maria during the Inquisition; a singing narrator… Such are the elements that make up Dildotectonics. A masterful blend of time and place, this film gives free rein to a search for pleasure that is free from all normative constraints.

Jorge is a DJ at a Lisbon nightclub. But the club owner, Queirós, who is also involved in diamond traffic, is obsessive over a woman, Cláudia, who betrayed him before. When she unexpectedly returns to Portugal and to the club, Jorge immediately understands Queirós's obsession over her. For her, Jorge also gets involved in diamond traffic and is slowly dragged into a world of passion, violence and betrayal.

The movie tells the story of two best friends, Florence (50) and Nina (30). Each one has an existential problem: Nina has doubts to become a mother in the current society, Florence is afraid of getting older. Both friends decide to "escape" Belgium and fly off to Portugal. They rent a campervan in Lisbon and head off direction the South along the beautiful region of Alentejo and the Costa Vicentina. A roadtrip begins, during which the two friends not only face each other, but mostly themselves.

A woman gets into a fight with her boyfriend, concerning her lack of humanism. Leaving him abruptly at the Santa Apolónia Station, she strikes a conversation with an interesting homeless man whom she decides to take home to just to show her boyfriend that she cares.

Several stories of love and hope, united by invisible threads. There are those who call these threads magic, some who call them destiny. What matters is that they will lead all of our characters to the same outcome, on the same day: Christmas Eve

A portrait of the relations between neighbours in a Lisbon courtyard. A story made of small episodes of humour, friendship, rivalry, love.

Mixed with fiction and documentary, the film relives the interviews conducted by the writer Clarice Lispector published in the magazines "Manchete" and "Fatos and Fotos" in the 1970s.

On a sun-drenched nudist beach, João encounters Vanya, a mysterious Russian whose sorrowful gaze and dramatic presence disrupt the calm of Portuguese Beach №19, a known gay haven. As João strives to uncover the pain behind Vanya’s despair, their conversation turns into a tense improvisation, revealing a haunting tale of forbidden love and loss. Amidst the beauty of paradise, their unexpected connection is shadowed by uncertainty—João senses the encounter spiraling toward a tragic climax, unsure if he’s witnessing genuine vulnerability or the act of a manipulator.

And only the Man remains immune. Consumed by desperation, in an attempt to save the Woman and protect his Son, the Man goes looking for help and travels through the village where nothing is as it seems. During a surreal and hallucinating night, the Man, haunted by memories of another life, begins to lose track of reality.

Inspired by the biography of the portuguese painter Maria de Lourdes Ribeiro, known as Maluda, who found the stage of her art in Lisbon.

Carica is only seven years old and wants a bicycle for Christmas. But his family has no money and offers him a book. The grandfather tells him the story of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. On the first day of rain and sun, Carica embarks on adventure.

Xis and Ypslon's wedding anniversary may bring shocking revelations and reflections on certain habits.

Gisberta was a Brazilian trans woman that lived as immigrant in Portugal. She was brutally murdered 10 years ago and since then became an icon for the transsexual rights cause. Piece by piece, this documentary offers a delicate portrait of a woman torn apart by an indifferent world.

After the fall of Abberossa, a conquered desert land ruled by gold and fear, a rebellion begins to rise. Told through the eyes of Sylvanna, a woman born into the Sultanist empire, the story follows Ymir, the first to refuse domination. As war spreads across ancient lands, loyalty fractures, empires collapse, and justice replaces vengeance.

He was the most prolific within the New Portuguese Cinema generation. He would try western spaghetti, esoteric allegory, supernatural, and science-fiction. Without state subsidies, he would quit filmmaking in the 1990s. Who remembers António de Macedo?

A documentary about the life and work of José Cardoso Pires. The information was gathered through a series of interviews made by the journalist Clara Ferreira Alves during autumn and winter of 1997 and also by people who were close to him.

A baby is kidnapped in a Brazilian airport. Years later, the mother lives in Lisbon and works in a strip-tease bar so she can survive. When she is fired, she joins a gang of bank robbers...

A nobleman from Alentejo, from a very conservative family, intends to reconquer Olivenza, returning the situation to the times of the Treaty of Tordesillas. To this end, he creates two movements, which prepare for the big day. However, these plans do not work, as the daughter of the Mayor of Olivenza falls in love with the son of the Baron of Altamira, and the war will be different...

Once the boss started deducting a third of the workers' wages on the pretext that it was necessary to purchase new machines in order to compete, a group of workers went on strike, occupied the company, but were expelled from their workplace by the police. Out on the street, the workers think about the best way to make their comrades and the general population aware of the seriousness of their situation. They then decide, by mutual agreement, following the humorous tradition of cegadas and popular theater, to improvise a satirical performance in which they denounce some typical examples of capitalist exploitation. From the bandstand, which serves as their rehearsal stage, to the final procession, which unexpectedly takes on a different tone, the workers learn and teach us how scathing and uncompromising criticism of capitalist institutions can be transformed into a celebration of struggle, joy, and unity.

When six-year-old Frederico finds out at school that people die when their hearts stop beating, he is unable to sleep that night. The next day, his mother asks the teacher once again: Must children always be told the truth? Always?