Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Leo is only twenty, but his life is in black and white. His days always begin at 6:06, with odd jobs and an endless race to get his hands on his next hit. Taking drugs is not just an addiction; it’s a mental loop that keeps Leo trapped in an eternal déjà vu. Each time he tries to break out and escape, he’s always sent back to square one. Until he meets Jo-Jo, an enigmatic girl his same age who speaks French only and drives a camper like she’s on the run from something. Like him, she has deep scars. So Jo-Jo is not an easy way out, but it’s chaos that Leo needs. She has her own demons, and in some way, she can see into Leo’s fractured psyche. They drive off to Portugal together, through dusty, dreamlike landscapes, and there, their souls connect and finally speak the same language. Yet saving each other won’t be easy. Leo struggles with his dependency, while Jo-Jo seems to be one step away from dissolving into thin air – as if she were only there to show Leo the path to take.

Brazilian teen drama webseries: The arrival of a new student at Nosso Recanto school triggers a series of mysterious and dramatic events.

In a future not too far away, Steve Battier, an elderly, terminally ill multi-millionaire, accepts the offer of a company - RPG - that in exchange for a high monetary sum, provides a very select group of clientèle the chance to be young again. For 10 hours, 10 millionaires from around the world, men and women of fame and power, are transferred to attractive and healthy younger bodies, to live in a world of temporary rejuvenation, in a game of real thrills, where every hour someone must die.

A reality show on an inhabited island where eight contestants must fight for their survival becomes more than it appears to be. Solum is not just a game -- it's a test, a selection process, and a mirror that confronts the truth of Nature, with the falsehoods of the Human Race.

In a community recently shaken by a local tragedy, 12-year-old João and his alcoholic father make a living from fishing. However, the effects of climate change on the business, the ghosts of their past and the father's increasingly erratic behavior could lead to their separation. It is in the next-door neighbors that João meets an unlikely family that could be his only hope for a different future.

In the north of medieval Portugal, the beautiful Ana falls in love with Thomas, a poor artisan. Her father immediately forbids their union, demanding that his daughter’s suitors produce a jewel as proof of their nobility. But the young couple refuse to give up. With the help of their faithful companions, the generosity of the townswomen and the talent of a mysterious jewellery maker, Ana and Thomas will face many challenges out of love, including the powerful and evil Duke of Aragon.

Two married people fall in love and everything else breaks apart. A infidelities story told in a female voice.

Sergio travels to a metropolis in West Africa to work for an NGO as an environmental engineer on a road project between the desert and the forest. There, he becomes entangled in an intimate yet unbalanced relationship with two inhabitants of the city, Diara and Gui. As neo-colonial dynamics among the expatriate community unravel, this fragile bond becomes his only refuge from an impending collapse into solitude or barbarism.

Fed up with the sea, Paul, a Swiss mechanic working in the noisy bowels of a merchant ship, lands in Lisbon.

Paulo Constantino in O Segredo Dos Djinn 2 (2025) A team of archaeologists return to the mountains of Kaf and find a medallion, which will cause the Guardian of Wishes to return to our world, to take his revenge on the ones who imprisoned him.

Bed and Breakfast is a romantic comedy about a saleswoman from a large department store in Rio who discovers she has inherited property in the wine country of California. She could never expect what she would find in "Webster", a small country town

Between 2011 and 2014, the documentary investigated the changes in Rio de Janeiro on behalf of mega-events: UPPs in slums, forced evictions, public spaces privatization and popular uprisings.

A transgender woman attempts to rehabilitate her younger, drug-addicted boyfriend while also dealing with her ne’er-do-well son, a soldier who’s gone AWOL.

Maria Vitória lives in a remote village in the Portuguese mountains and plays football on the local boys youth team. Determined to become a professional, she devotes all her free time to intense training with her father. Their routine is shaken by the unexpected return of her older brother, who left many years earlier after a tragic fire that took their mother’s life. As she prepares for the most important match of her life, Maria begins to question her father’s authority and gradually seeks a way to break free and take control of her own future.

Benjamin is trying to raise money through informal exchanges so that he can organize his son’s overdue birthday. Filimone is visiting his family between war missions, trying to be present at the growth of his three daughters. Eulália is a mother of six and gives birth to a new premature baby. Some days after, she has to come back to her job in a landfill.

A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.

Laura is on a vacation with her friends for the weekend in a luxurious and isolated house. The group decide to do a hallucinogenic drug and seem to become absorbed by their nature surroundings. However, after a strange encounter at night, Laura is having trouble facing reality.

On his deathbed, His Majesty Alfredo, King without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories from the time when he dreamt of becoming a fireman. His encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men devoted to love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.

Stranded along a sublime river fjord in northern Portugal, an ornithologist is subjected to a series of brutal and erotic Stations-of-the-Cross-style tests.

Accused of adultery, Ana Augusta Plácido and Camilo Castelo Branco were imprisoned for more than a year in the Porto Prison, she in June 1860, he in October of the same year, after an adventurous escape from justice through the lands of the North.

A 70-year-old man is in a relationship with a young man named Heiko. It is a fetishist relationship taken to extreme exoticism.

Several characters who are each at critical stages of their lives are strangely impelled towards an uncharted lake in the middle of the desert where they all have the opportunity to save each other.

A national coach working in Lisbon during World War II also acted as a spy for the Allies, leading a risky double life

Father António is a priest by vocation, committed and generous, dear people of Vila Daires a quiet village of the north. But Father António is also a man, and Vila Daires is not as peaceful as it seems. The good intentions of the Father will not be sufficient to halt the worsening of the conflict. And when your fate intersects with Lena, the "black sheep" of the village, Father will also be forced to confront his own demons. Especially with those who never even thought that could exist.

Gaspard, a teenager from the suburbs of Lisbon, falls into the hands of the Ogre, a man who has made a pact with the Devil. The Ogre uses the boy to attract tourists, whom he transforms into animals and then kills. Gaspard escapes with a donkey and a dog that he has grown fond of, and in an enchanted manor, he meets the spirit of Queen D. Maria I.

A group of nuns become possessed by demons and are then tortured in a dungeon of horrors during the Inquisition.

A young priest commits a crime when he falls in love with a beautiful and troubled woman. Based on O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Crime of Father Amaro"), a novel by the 19th-century Portuguese writer José Maria de Eça de Queiroz. It was first published in 1875 to great controversy.

Romeu, a corrupt cop, hires the services of Cid and Alex, to catch a notorious criminal, who left Mexico and is on his way to Galicia, Spain to find the killer of his brother, also trying to catch the same criminal is an FBI agent.

María narrates in first person her mother Adela's journey from Asturias to Havana in 1929. On this trip, she follows her sister Segunda, who had left years earlier and to whom she was very close. Adela, like her sister, grew up cleaning and washing clothes in the prao, a field that was always covered in snow, causing her constant ovarian pain in the cold. Painful and heavy periods are a heavy burden, but thanks to sisterhood and understanding, Adela will gain the confidence to take control of her life at the end of her journey. The story María tells us is a story of migration, one that has always existed and will continue to exist. It is also a cycle—one that repeats itself in many lives—but one that has only one meaning: it is a cycle of departure.

The story of an ambulant sharpener who crosses spaces in a (almost) lifeless country.

Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.

João, an actress from Lisbon, as she stars in a biopic about Liberada, a gender-nonconforming figure persecuted by the Portuguese Inquisition in the 18th century. The film's production becomes a battleground as João clashes with the director over how Liberada’s legacy should be portrayed. These tensions deepen as João's dreams are increasingly haunted by Liberada's ghost, blurring the lines between past and present. When the director succumbs to a mysterious paralysis, leaving the film unfinished, João is left to navigate the unfolding chaos. She faces unanswerable questions, not only about the film's future but also about her own connection to Liberada’s spirit and story.

How would you react if you couldn't see? In rehearsing the theatrical adaptation of "Blindness", by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the company "O Bando" made the experience. The actors lived 24 hours blindfolded in an abandoned hospital. How would you react if you could see again?

A psychiatrist tries to treat an emotionally disturbed teenage boy who has a pathological fear of being touched. The only person who can communicate emotionally with the young patient is a girl suffering from split personalities who speaks in rhymes and withdraws from anyone who refuses to do the same.

Maria spends her daytime sewing and cleaning, while at night she works as a prostitute in Oporto's streets. Years ago her path crossed with José, a married man who became her most faithful client but who couldn't help her to escape the hard life. Today this old prostitute continues showing off her body through the long city's nights, though the clients are almost gone. José is still there, but he failed at what she desired the most: a son. In a very intimate and raw portray of a woman, MARIA disclosures how love and getting older can feels like.

Documentary about the life of Portuguese Fado singer Amalia Rodrigues (1920-1999) with an interview and collection of footage from performances throughout her long career.

Liberation tells the dramatic story of the battle waged on two fronts during World War II - the Allied campaign to liberate Europe and Hitler's genocidal campaign against the Jews. The World War II documentary uses film footage, radio broadcasts, and period music gathered from archives around the world. Interwoven throughout the film are the compelling stories of the Jews of Europe - unforgettable stories of tragedy, courage, resistance, and survival. Liberation begins in 1942, when Adolf Hitler was still at the height of his power and the Allies began envisioning a cross-channel invasion of Europe.

Filmmaker Catarina Vasconcelos sifts through the memories of her ancestors. Her naval officer grandfather, Henrique, who married her grandmother, Beatriz, on her 21st birthday, spent extended periods at sea, leaving her with six children. This is the beginning of a generational saga.

Orlando Pantera (1967-2001) was a gifted Cape Verdean musician who died at 33 before releasing his solo album. This film revives his legacy through innovative sound and archival material from his daughter. It features contemporary interpretations by artists like Mayra Andrade and Princezito, highlighting his lasting influence on musicians today.

Set in 2025, five centuries after the sentencing of death of Gilles de Rais. A young couple discovers the case while isolated from the world. Like their contemporaries, they wonder about the guilt or innocence of this monster who inspired the Bluebeard tale. And so the idea arises to recreate the trial.

Rosa's life, a highly valued professional, is turned upside down when her grandfather Marcelino dies.

The moving story of the last generation of Holocaust survivors who travel to Poland with thousands of teenagers from around the world to retrace the Death March from Auschwitz to Birkenau.

Totally Gay! is a 2003 television special on VH1 that discusses gay pop culture in the United States. The content of the show includes the hottest sitcoms (Will & Grace), newest gay icons (Kyle and Lane Carlson, who say they are not gay), and the most popular dog breed (pug). The somewhat light-hearted tone of the show was balanced at the end by narrator Trev Broudy discussing the assault that he had suffered shortly before the program was recorded, which left him with permanent brain damage. Totally Gay! was followed by a sequel in 2004 called Totally Gayer.

When the hotel where workaholic Catarina works is sold, she needs to show her skills to manage unprofessional staff, look after eccentric guests and deal with ghosts from the past, which are brought back by the visit of an unexpected friend.

After breaking up with her boyfriend, a woman named Odete descends into madness and claims to be pregnant with the child of her neighbour Pedro, who died in a car crash and is mourned by his boyfriend Rui.

When a group of friends fail to lower the ladder of their boat, they find themselves stranded in the surrounding waters and struggle to survive.

A small village in Portugal, Águas-Altas, is being sued by a Spanish multinational corporation because the village hosts a website that uses the same name as an international brand of mineral water. A judicial battle for website begins, that quickly turned in to a media circus. Thus the residents of this small village, who are not even sure what the internet is, are forced defend their website and their villages honour.

Pê, a man with terminal cancer, wanders through his city, Lisbon. Throughout the day, he is confronted with a reality unaware of his suffering while he prepares his imminent death by writing a farewell letter to his daughter. When emptying her father’s house, the daughter discovers the letter. It is the beginning of a new encounter.

A deputy sheriff defies local ranchers to investigate a Mexican's murder.

Erotic comedy divided in three episodes.

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure.