Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Delving into the work of Italian feminist Carla Lonzi, author and founder of Rivolta Femminile, the film takes us on a time-travel through a history of violence against women, while paying homage to oeuvres of feminist artists from the 17th century to the present day.

Mesmerized by the songs of Peroguarda villagers in southern Portugal’s Alentejo region, young Portuguese modern poet Antonio Reis, Corsican researcher of Portuguese folk music Michel Giacometti, and film director Paulo Rocha visited the village one after another in the late 1950s. This work refreshes the soul and flows with songs and poetry seeped in sadness, as well as the atmosphere of the quiet sea and village, fields adorned with vibrant red flowers, and roads traveled by Reis and the others, while interspersing images from Paulo Rocha’s films.

A writer immerses himself in his work La muerte del payaso and becomes a hostage of impossible dreams. Between crimes and hallucinations, between the gothic nature of night and the decadence of the sand, a hopeless story is told, based on the work of Raul Brandão.

Filmed just before the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Dark portrait of a group of friends who used to be colleagues at the University in 1962. Ten years later, they have lost all their ideals. With Lisbon on the background they discuss politics, love, culture; each of them has reached a deadlock. The camera remains still while it registers the dissolution of their dreams.

A poem. A tale made of silence and complicity. Light and shadows, the charm of the night, the moon as a passion... This is a tale about someone who tried to make the dream come true. This is the tale about the cat and the moon.

Caleidoscope of documentary-like scenes and re-enacted episodes of a day in the life of a large port town – Lisbon, from the old district around Saint George's Castle down to the docks and the 'Sagres' on the Tagus river, to the new commercial districts.

We only understand some behaviour when we duplicate them involuntarily.

Paris, March 1939. While the march of the Nazi troops makes itself heard throughout Europe, exiled artists and intellectuals from all over the world still converge in the French capital. Portuguese composer Fernando Lopes-Graça is among them, sharing this cosmopolitan environment, on the verge of rupture. A happy coincidence brings him into the presence of the man he considers his master, the intransigent Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. For Lopes-Graça, the occasion presents itself as a unique opportunity to show Bartók his scores...

Filmed on the streets of Lisbon, after the 25th of April, with a Super 8 camera, it documents the political propaganda posters, graffiti and murals of revolutionary ideology inscribed on the city's walls.

Mirene and André are a heterosexual couple struggling with infertility issues. Carl and Vicente are a homosexual couple undergoing an experimental procedure in order to have a biological child.

In 1995, during the Angolan civil war, Nayola sets out in search of her missing husband.

It has been almost 2 years since the small town of Santa Carla had suffered in the hands of the raging maniac, Cameron Crowe. Legend around town had it as that he may have been burnt in a fire he started. No one expected that he'd ever come back to reek havoc once again. And this time with a vengeance. They're only hope is to conjure spirits from beyond for help.

During a tour of the province, someone mistakenly leaves a baby in a singer's car without him noticing. António decides to take the child in, with Madalena, a fellow artist. But the presumed mother, claiming it was a mistake, enlists the help of her brother, a police officer, which leads to a chase to Porto.

A Portuguese documentary about Isaac dos Santos, a 20-year-old going through the process of gender transition. From a very young age, Isaac realized that he did not identify with the female sex, having decided to change his life and his body when he was only 18 years old. The documentary lets you see the whole process of Isaac's transformation, a hard but rewarding journey marked by his strong charisma and determination.

Aladdin, a 15-year-old boy, has to face many problems after he is left orphaned with relatives who do not want him. However, everything changes after he meets Princess Jasmine and the evil Jaffer.

Pedro, an ordinary man who feels useless, is confronted by his own narrator, a voice unafraid to expose his greatest insecurities.

Marcos returns home after a few years away.

Suspicious that her son is gay, Joana shares her doubts with her husband. To her surprise, the boy's father knows much more about the subject than she imagined. After all, why was she the last to know?

Documentary about amazing Brazilian musician Rogério Duprat, main orchestrator of Tropicália, his rehearsals with Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. There's also the first performance of his 1958 "5 Pieces for a Solo Cello" and pieces of the only recording of "Organismo", serial work inspired by a Décio Pignatari's poem.

A couple watches a bank robbery live on TV.

In Madragoa, Zé Luís, a man of the people devoted to his work, is in love with Clara, the daughter of Santana das Carnes, his godfather and protector, who intends to marry her to D. Eusébio with the intention of financing his business. When Santana discovers the romance, he fires Zé Luís and forces him to break it off, convincing him that he owes his marriage to Margarida, a young woman of the same upbringing. Zé Luís finds employment at the docks, Margarida dies of illness, Santana goes bankrupt... Zé Luís supports him with initiative and money from his father, who has meanwhile returned from Africa, and ends up marrying Clara.

A child, a man with a gun and a dead man. Another simple story.

A dreamlike journey seen through the eyes of a trans-human as well as a kino-symphony of voices from the multiple personas of Fernando Pessoa, Lisbon Revisited shows alternative ways of looking at and hearing the city. Celebrating its greatest phantom and confronting his ambiguous and pervasive sexuality, the film is spoken in the three languages in which Pessoa wrote, Portuguese, English and French.

Brazilian Band - MTV Live in Ouro Preto is the sixth album and first live work of Brazilian pop rock group Skank, released in 2001. Recorded in Tiradentes Square in the historic city of Ouro Preto (Minas Gerais), on 7 and 8 July 2001, the show has its repertoire consists primarily of songs included in voting by fans through the band's website. Besides the songs voted as Pacato Citizen Response, See You, It's A Football Match and Alms, the album features two new compositions: "En Tus estare Trapped Fingers" (Spanish version for "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police, recorded for an album tribute to the band) and "Under the Sun" (included on the trail of the novel the Daughters of Mother, Rede Globo). A song Maquinarama disc, "Ali", was not played on the show, but was included on the disc. The only special interest is Chico Amaral, the band's usual partner, who plays guitar on the song "Answer".

"Laurinha," the documentary, brings back from oblivion and silence the great Laura Alves, one of the best Portuguese actresses of all time. In this documentary, we get to know a woman with boundless energy and unafraid to speak her mind. We discover her life, the people she shared moments with, her family, and her loves. We also explore what motivated her immense dedication to her work and confront her tragic, premature end, marked by illness and loneliness.

Life through a glass, life through a lens, life through a camera. Fade to black. General view of the access to a factory with a big wheel.

A commission from CIBA - Battle of Aljubarrota Interpretation Center, from the Batalha de Aljubarrota Foundation.

In a semi-submerged world, in between shipwrecks and ruins, a man spends his days in an old shack perched on tall stilts, with the only company of a cat and an old tape recorder.

Somewhere in an unspecified time, Patrick Mendes presents an initiation ritual in a community at the ends of the earth.

A grandmother takes her granddaughter to visit her past memories through old photographs.

Luisa and Manuel begin the existence of married, having only their dream and hope. He judges himself a Tarzan in the jungle of life, able to face all the threats, next to his companion.

A story about doomed love between two people from different worlds and the impact in their lives.

David and Michelle run a communications firm together and are preparing to become parents. But the young man learns that his father, with whom he had broken ties at age 15, is dying. He decides to go to Switzerland to be with the man who ruined his childhood.

An animated short documentary crafted by people on the move in the refugee camp of the island of Lesbos (GR), following the story of Orhan, a Syrian Kurd who fled war with his family in 2013, seeking safety in Turkey—only to find that peace was still a distant dream.

Rui Esteves is a thirty-something provincial doctor, praised for his human qualities towards the elderly and needy in a village where loneliness and abandonment are as much or more of a problem than illness and disease. When a controversial revelation exposes him as an impostor, Rui is removed from his position and forced to relive a past of pain and alcohol dependence.

Álvaro and Jaime, two childhood friends in their twenties, share a particularly critical view of the functioning of society in all its dimensions. Spending much of the day as a video club clerk in order to get some financial income and get around the difficulty they feel in entering into the game of professional careers and status - a refusal that is a personal commitment for them - the two main characters they are plotting a suburb diary. While they understand the nonsense of the existence of a videoclub, at a time when the proliferation of the Internet facilitates access to the contents available there, the two main characters engage in a parallel business selling the herb, using the establishment like facade. The process passes without the knowledge of the owner of the video club, an individual at the end of middle age with a total disinterest for cinema.

Vasco, a young pianist, spends entire nights practicing after a mysterious musician shows him his true potential. His world changes as the piano consumes more and more of his life.

Judite is a woman of faith, dedicated to her work as a sacristan and to caring for her bedridden husband. When his health worsens, she feels abandoned by both her children and her priest.

No matter how calm the surface of the ocean appears to be, each time we cross the line that divides land and water we enter an unknown and unexpected world. Does our world remain the same when we come back on shore?

Ventura mumbles the lyrics of the worker's hymn "Alto Cutelo", intercut with scenes from an hospital and a volcano erupting on Fogo island in Cape Verde.

“A collection of self-portraits captured over more than ten years. Between the moment I was given my first (and modest) camera and the summer of 2016, there are grandchildren learning to swim and shoals of shipwrecked people in the Mediterranean…” – R.G.

Aiyra left her small hometown to work in the big city. Conceição, her mother, left many years ago, but she returned.

Luísa has been married to Jorge for three years. He is about to leave on a mission to the Alentejo when she finds out about the arrival of his cousin Basilio after a long stay in Brazil, where he seems to have made a fortune.

The agriculture reforming process, after the 1974 revolution, is seen through an analysis of the social structures and class struggles of the Portuguese society.

Alberto is planning the ultimate romantic escape, but before he can catch the airplane he will endure the creepiest day of his life.