Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Manoel de Oliveira's homage to Vila do Conde, with a poem by José Régio. It was shot in 1965, but only completed in 2008.

The world is not enough to cover all the misfortunes that afflict Lucas. An orphan, a loner and a troublemaker, Lucas is a moving target for all sorts of misfortunes. But things are never so bad that they can't get worse: Lucas loses his job and is about to be evicted from his home. When all seems lost, he receives a phone call from a childhood friend asking for his help. He has to entertain two influencers for a weekend in a luxurious mansion. It is in this veritable technological trap, guarded by a mysterious Englishman, that Lucas will discover unexpected secrets about his past and, more importantly, it is there that he will discover love. Danger, suspense and cocktail recipes! Romance, eroticism (to die for) and impossible snooker shots! Secret weapons, fast cars and scooter races! LIVE AND LET GO is a romantic action comedy with a licence to kill... with laughter!

Marta and Jaime are a childless couple who have opted for the peace and quiet of the countryside. Without any surprise, they take in a neighboring child for a few days. However, a nocturnal visit from a strange animal shakes the couple’s logical reasoning about the simple things in life. Could the child have something to do with that terrifying presence? One of the effects of fear is to disturb the senses, making things seem different from what they are, and so, little by little, a fantastic order is established, triggering the most irrational and violent reactions in them. In the end, nothing will be the same for them again.

A man living a regular and not-so-spectacular life, only feels alive at night.

A survivor travels in search of the last bastion of civilization. Battling to survive, but never losing hope that something nostalgic from the past, which lives on in his memory, might still exist.

Searching for redemption, a mother and a daughter go beyond their limits to break free from their comfortable but suffocating lives. A narrative of hallucinogenic qualities, pierced by moments of clarity.

An unlikely team of cops and a student, live a crazy day, meet the most ridiculous characters, and unmask a drug trafficking operation with disastrous consequences not just for the city, but for the whole world.

Two lovers meet again in strange circumstances, when she is a recent widow not particularly grieving, and he is a divorcée mourning his daughter. They reunite, only to break again - this time for good.

Álvaro Norte, a celebrated composer and cellist, invites his talented student Mauro to be his assistant. However, Mauro reveals he has other plans that would separate them. In response, Álvaro confines Mauro in a room, using his pain as inspiration for a new cello composition. Despite Mauro's resistance, he inadvertently ends up fulfilling Álvaro's artistic vision.

Madalena is a seven-year-old girl who has to draw the nativity scene. When she lists the characters in the biblical scene, she is confronted with a surprise: God, the father of Jesus, is not included in the scene. The girl is reluctant to accept this new information, but after considering the facts, she eventually comes to a curious conclusion.

This film depicts the life of the 19th-century Portuguese writer Wenceslau De Moraes by means of nine ancient ballads from China. The writer married a Chinese woman after he left his wife and family to go live in Macao. Later, he moved to Japan where he fell in love with a Japanese woman, staying in Japan for the rest of his life. Mixed in with the career and loves of Moraes is the history of Portugal at home and in its colonies.

Years after the mysterious death of his sister, Alex wakes up in his childhood home not knowing how he got there. He's forced to relive his memories and discover what really happened to her.

The struggle between two friends: one, symbolizes the deepest incredulity about religion; the other, priest Manuel, endures insults with stoic resignation, but doesn't give up on installing words of faith in the hope of recovering his soul for God. In a pathetic atmosphere, in which everyone defends the primacy of their beliefs, they feel surrounded by a bundle of circumstances linked to a secret of love, with an unexpected and disconcerting outcome ...

Greice, a Brazilian girl studying in Lisbon, gets involved with a mysterious guy and ends up getting accused of a strange incident that occurs at the students' welcoming party, which forces her to return to her hometown to renew her residence permit. Hidden in a hotel, while preventing her mother from discovering she’s back in the country and with the help of some friends, Greice tries to find a place of comfort in the world.

A sickly young girl is given away by her father to a childless couple. Twenty years later, she marries her adopted father.

Two musicians who play for tips at a Portuguese train station find a magical book left by a passenger in a rush to board a train. The musicians walk across the Alentejo region of Portugal in search of the passenger. This leads to a walking journey of beautiful fields, local towns, and the Alentejo countryside. The is a wonderful film of two friends who explore a magical country. It is charming and has elements of a dreamlike fantasy.

Lúcia is courted by António, from the same social class, although she keeps a loving memory of Francisco, a half-adventurer marginal.

Twenty years ago, believing she was doomed, Irma took a trip to Greece. Today, she retraces that journey, accompanied by three young men. From island to island, between sky and sea, the travelers read, listen and live, carried by a longing for beauty and clarity.

The character of a novel gains life to torment the author, revisiting and reliving the story of a crime.

Eduardo, the son of the wealthy farmer Jerónimo de Vinhais, falls in love and departs for Lisbon with the fado singer Maria da Graça, after studying abroad, and refusing his father "too" to be a taurenic knight.

The revolutionary Álvaro Cunhal, symbol of Portuguese communism and political giant of the 20th century. He is nothing less than a larger-than-life figure, now examined by João Botelho’s camera, in a detective-minded film, in which the early years of the life of the historic leader of the Portuguese Communist Party are explored. In between, excerpts from his own books are staged for the spectator.

"Louceiras" portraits the daily life of the last ceramists of the Brazilian indigenous ethnic group Kariri-Xocó, who earn a living from clay. They inherit a tradition passed from mother to daughter concerning the art of choosing, manufacturing and cooking clay pots and pans. Living in a village by the São Francisco river in the city of Porto Real do Colégio(AL), they share with their people the secret of medicinal herbs, the Toré dance, the labour songs (rojão) and the secret of Ouricuri.

Documentary about the portuguese surfer Tiago Pires.

"Asleep" is an experimental documentary , shot in Super 8, about the Capelinhos volcano in the Azorean island of Faial .

Miguel, a debutant director, and his young team live a series of tribulations during the shootings of their first film, which unrolls between Lisbon, Venice, Paris and Madrid.

The final chapter of the Balas & Bolinhos saga.

Brasilia, 1973. At the height of the military dictatorship, seven friends, young as the city in which they live, dream of living in theater. Led by director Léo, the group carries out the rehearsals of a play that weaves comparisons between Jesus Christ and the cangaceiro Lampião. While political repression runs wild in the federal capital and sexual freedom is still taboo, Bia is increasingly being held prisoner by her mother's obsession, causing everyone to increasingly question the concepts and values of society.

Us to the fascinating, disturbing, ghostly figure of Paulo de Figueiredo, professional mercenary soldier, from the sixties, played the hired liquidator task in diverse corners of the world.

Mayara, Fernanda and Rosa, three young people from wealthy families, leave their cities in the interior and settle in São Paulo. They fall into a life of prostitution but eventually fall in love. Their families are worried about their disappearance, although they find them when they appear on a TV show.

Benjamim's nonstop tour through Portugal in Summer 2015.

A character searches, in Macau, for a friend who lived there fifteen years before. Assisted by the letters written to him by his friend, he will reconstitute his past steps, trying to find him.

A young man Nuno, tries to understand how his fate is tied to that of his deceased uncle Nuno, whom he never met.

The shady side of an Italian textile trade in northern Germany is the subject of this slow-paced but atmospheric drama featuring Alberto Sordi as Totonno, a low-level, petty criminal anxious to move up a somewhat crooked ladder. Rising to the rank of the "dons" -- Don Raffaele (Carmine Ippolito) or Don Gennaro (Pasquale Cenammo) -- is not an easy task, as Totonno is about to find out. In the meantime, Paula (Belinda Lee) provides a romantic distraction, and another would-be entrepreneur opts for the straight and narrow. This uneven feature offers some colorful performances but the sum is less convincing than its parts.

Insects move secretly, like tiny gods performing rituals unseen by human eyes. Deuses Efémeros watches this secret world with care, in a contemplative animation.

Short coming-of-age set in the 1970s, where Sicília moves to São Paulo and meets Natália, with whom she gets really close to and together both discover more about life and love.

Ubu, instigated by his wife, murders King Venceslau and usurps the throne of Poland. Intoxicated by power, this grotesque and coward character conducts his reign in an absurd and cruel way, leading his kingdom to ruin. A cinematographic adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s play, a political satire that, cyclically, turns to the reality of world politics.

An inspiring story that shows how the presence of a marine species can affect the entire economy and the whole society of one of the smallest islands of the Azores, the Island of Santa Maria. It is the only place in Europe where a large number of whale sharks are sighted and in addition their migration is shrouded in mystery, no one knows where they come from, where they are going … and why they appear surrounded by thousands of tunas. It also accompanies the scientific expeditions that for 11 years have tried to unveil the secrets of these giants and to know if their recent presence is linked to global warming and rising water temperatures around the Azores.

A musical about a woman who hates music.

The interaction between a group of German soldiers and a group of prisoners. Based on a romance by Elio Vittorini.

Zé Galinha, an undercover federal agent, investigates Aduzer, one of the world's biggest organized crime bosses. When he accepts an order for 32 cars bound for Brazil and Israel, Zé Galinha begins to lose sight of the standards established by the law. In the middle of the investigation, Zé Galinha accidentally steals the car of Russian mafia boss Dimitri Kruchev, which contains a program that provides access to the global computer network. Sousa and Meireles, agents of the Judicial Police, investigate the Russians, and they all become involved in high-speed car chases in a dangerous and frantic game.

Vasco is a medical student in Lisbon, supported by his rich aunts, whom he had falsely told he had already graduated. In fact, he devotes himself to a bohemian life, preferring the popular fairs and pretty women, especially Alice, a seamstress from the Castelinhos quarter, which rather upsets her ambitious father, tailor Caetano, who is familiar with Vasco's debts. After failing yet another final exam, he is surprised by his aunts' announcement that they will visit him in Lisbon to see his practice.

The biggest Brazilian historical festival of all time. The great cast of the 1973 Phonogram (now Universal Music) meets in three nights to protest against the curtailment of freedom of expression in those dark years of the dictatorship. With the images rescued in 2005, revealing exciting moments, containing the incredible presentations, it brings a team of all greatness and the opportunity to understand the path that Brazilian music has taken to the present day.

Sonia, a girl from St. Petersburg, decides to seek a better life in Western Europe. She first gets a job at a car dealer in Germany. But she is suddenly kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. She will be dragged from country to country and resistance will only bring her misery and humiliation.

Seven childhood friends, in their mid twenties, honor their annual summer tradition by spending a week in a seaside town, forcing them to confront the memories of a complicated past.

Humberto hanged himself. Catarina, Paulo and Victor want the company where Humberto used to work for to take responsibility in his death, leading them to kidnappe the company’s director in an act of despair. Who is Humberto? What company is that? In which paths will he take us, after his death? Cinerama is an edgy, enigmatic, but not distant film that brings up genres of cinema as well as other forms of art like dance, theatre and poetry. The film reflects ways of being in life.

To be captive is to be confined, both in space and in time. The captive one is not only and necessarily a prisoner, but becomes an inherent part of that space, his identity being continually projected on it. The captivity space itself is in turn not inert; it is rather characterized by whomever it contains, it is shaped by that experience.

Rock in Rio is the largest music and entertainment event of all time, having already 12 editions held in Brazil, Portugal and Spain, which gathered nearly 6 million people. David Guetta made his debut at the festival ​​in 2013. It was the first presentation of a DJ at the World Stage in the festival's history in Brazil. Setlist: 01. Play Hard 02. Ain't A Party 03. Song 2 (Blur cover) 04. Vago (Maurizio Gubellini cover) 05. Love Don't Let Me Go 06. Memories 07. I Love It 08. When Love Takes Over 09. Sexy Bitch 10. I Need Your Love (Calvin Harris cover) 11. Titanium 12. Just One Last Time 13. Let Her Go 14. Locked Out of Heaven (Bruno Mars cover) 15. Wake Me Up 16. Without You 17. Play Hard

In the Brazilian countryside, the village of Monteiros hosts a unique event every year. When a person’s prayers are granted, they offer the village’s dogs a feast. Between religious celebration and popular belief, Lazarus’ Hunger powerfully documents a community coming together.

In 1961 the liberation struggles start in Angola against the portuguese colonial power. The African students in Portugal fear for their safety and plan to flee outside the country. With the help of Theology students, French and North-American pastors, the operation code name "Angola" fled over 100 african students abroad towards freedom, amongst them several future leaders of african countries.

Alentejo 1975. The Police associate a group of traveling players with a strike of agricultural workers. The action takes place in the open space and harsh heat of the Alentejo. With the connivance of Lianor, the troupe enters the palace of Don Gonzalo an old aristocrat. The gentleman is obsessed by visions of great past deeds in a universe of ghosts. This was the first example of militant cinema in Portugal after the end of the Estado Novo dictatorship, exploring the world after the Carnation Revolution and its contradictions.