Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Geni spent her life keeping a secret and living in the shadow of Fran Lopez, a famous singer with many fans. Determined to change her story, she fights for her space and recognition

40 years later, Rui Simões returns to São Pedro da Cova to exhibit the photographs he took during the directing of São Pedro da Cova's films. From this reencounter a new message to the centralised powers: now it's toxic waste that is threatening people's health. 40 years later. From coal to waste, the fight goes on.

A family gathers to celebrate Christmas.

Manuela is a sensual medical representative. She is accustomed to walking the path of infidelity, recklessly involving herself with doctors. Suspended between the dream of a great love and a life of comfort, she oscillates in limbo between a man who has panic attacks every time he falls in love and a romantic terrorist who will never forgive betrayal. Between the impulse to cheat and the transparency of emotional dependence, Manuela exposes herself... In an escalation of anxiety, lies, and creativity, she will desperately try to avoid the marital consequences.

A group of friends meet after some years apart and decide to go on a treasure hunt.

Guinea-Bissau, 1969. A violent war between the Portuguese colonial army and the guerrillas of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea. Nome leaves his village and joins the maquis. After years, he will return as a hero, but joy will soon give way to bitterness and cynicism.

Based on poems by Charles Bukowski.

"Estadio Novo is about Portugal, its football and its fans. As hordes of supporters descend on the ten brand new stadiums for Euro 2004, this lively and informative documentary takes a look at their impact. Examining the role of football in Portugal before and the revolution of 1974 it asks... what's really going on?"

May 1910: across the globe, excitement is mounting as Halley's Comet approaches. Rumors of the Earth's atmosphere being poisoned by gases in the tail of the famous celestial body trigger reactions of fear fueled by superstition and ignorance. Portugal is no exception to this wave of collective apprehension and fear. Entire families gather to celebrate a kind of last supper and die together. In the year that marks the centenary of the establishment of the Republic in Portugal, it is also a century since the greatest event of collective terror and fear experienced by the Portuguese population in the course of its history. The mental fragilities of deep, insecure, and superstitious Portugal came to the fore in all their tragic and comic splendor.

Maria do Carmo discovers she is HIV positive. On impulse, she goes to the home of João, her former partner. Three lives, two relationships. Two women and one man.

Can a turtle, the most pacific animal on earth, start a range of significant events that are going to forever change a couple's life? After dividing all their assets, Arnaldo e Barbara still have one decision to make before they formalize their separation: what to do with the turtle? Amongst hesitation and failed solutions, unintended burglaries, police stations, plastic natures and misunderstandings, a single turtle fate is postponing this couple's separation. Because they know that, when they give the turtle back to its natural habitat, their relationship will be over. Are they ready for that last step?

At Uz, an isolated hamlet in the northern mountains of Portugal, four generations live together in a group of around fifty people. When life is rough, solidarity is of the highest order. Everything else is left in God’s hands. They could have emigrated, like so many others, but chose to stay and keep their ancestral way of life, away from the racket of modernity.

A personal biography of the leader of the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) seen through the eyes of those who were close to him and those who studied his trajectory and thought.

In the town of Entroncamento, violence, misfortune, greed, and loyalty rule the streets. Laura arrives there to rebuild her life, but the irresistible pull of quick money and crime immediately draws her back into a troubled past. For those she meets at this crossroads, every day presents the choice between who they were and who they might become.

A short documentary that emerge at the center of round table debate, participating in it there's three students from the Superior School of Arts and Design, Caldas da Rainha - Portugal. This conversation go along with a video essay about Afrofuturism and Pop Culture. Also, during the debate, an interview with another student gives some real example of how afrofuturism can be applied when it comes to in taking control of the colonial narratives into a black person perspective.

BUÔN is an exposition of thought, desire to travel and see a world beyond the walls of a city terminating the social , mental, physical, psychological , political and individually on their projects , nooks and architectures.

Zé Manel is the Manager of "Almas Penadas", probably the worst band in the world. A movie of his delusion of becoming famous.

Little Syria follows the quest of a brother, his sister and her boyfriend, trapped between a Syria from which they ran for their lives, and a Europe which seems at times to embrace them and at others to push them back. In the time of making of this film, more than 14 million Syrians have been forced to leave their homes. Syrians asked for asylum in more than 130 countries. Reem, Mohammed and Yasser try to make sense of what is left of the Syrian Revolution. Little Syria is a confidential insight into the invisible lives of Syrian refugees.

In a small Portuguese village in the late 1960s, a young priest sides with the population in their struggle for better living and working conditions. Following complaints from the industrialist who employs most of the village's population, the bishop decides to transfer the priest to another parish. When the people learn of his forced departure, they revolt and unite to prevent the priest from leaving the village.

Erik is a solitary woodcutter. Kevin is the young conductor of the village's cycling brass band. Erik never goes out without his old mare. Kevin is keen on the clarinetist. The clarinetist is crazy about horses. But Erik doesn't know how to give. And Kevin doesn't know how to flirt. They will both need to learn.

In the second half of the 1980s, an Portuguese independent music publisher was created, Ama Romanta. It was the alternative to the hidden censorship of the big label industry and its founder was João Peste (the charismatic vocalist of Pop Dell'Arte).

A 70-year-old queer man who is losing his memory needs you to help keeping some of his most intimate and contradictory remembrances from a public bathroom in his past, where he had experiences of danger, pleasure, and shame.

Mike, half Swiss, half American, is a friend of Portuguese director Fernando Lopes. He’s a painter and has been living in Portugal for 30 years, making him also Portuguese. His stage name is Michael Biberstein. His internationally acclaimed works belong to some of the most important collections and museums around the world. He and Fernando Lopes decided to embrace this adventure after a conversation they had in a mutual friend’s house. The result is this movie: an inner journey about the creation of a painting where its silence, its mystery and magic were filmed.

A place where putting red lipstick gives life and a broadcast camera takes it, reclaiming lost girls in endoscopic romances into darkness, where they evaporate, inside empty haute couture dresses.

Olívia is a film student. Newcomer to a new reality, she has an affair with a stranger. This turns to be Cesar, her Filmology teacher, who also requires her to complete a short about Manoel de Oliveira.

After being for eleven years in the city, José António Baptista returned to his home village to focus on literature.

The daily life and experiences of three Erasmus students who spend their time in the small town of Abrantes in Portugal.

Mamba Negra is a collective of artists/activists with a strong LGBT and feminist component, where rave culture and social resistance come together bringing to life vibrant and eclectic anti-establishment parties. The documentary takes us along the hypnotic spaces of São Paulo's underground scene, the streets of downtown filled by Carnival and the collective's headquarters, and through the intimate revelations of the collective's key members offers an insight into a group at the margins who strives to stitch together the open wounds of a society that tries to kill diversity.

Early morning and everybody leaves home to work. Jeremias, the gardener, hears the telephone ringing in the house. The front neighbour has a message. Conceição, the maid, called: she won’t be able to come today, Jeremias has to make lunch for Boris. Water falls from the window. the washing machine is not working properly. Boris arrives from school. Jeremias doesn’t have the key

Idling afternoons, drugs, heartbreaks, psychedelic moods immersed in music. An adrenaline rush. Lisbon as the backdrop for a drifting youth.

Based on an Eça de Queiroz incursion into fantastic literature.

A Visigoth count conquers a small village town from the Moors in the Lusitanian mountains, only to loose his possessions through the mysterious workings of a woman from parts unknown.

Originating in Curitiba in 2013 and spreading to Portugal, Spain, Mexico and Brazil, “Basket das Excluídas” consists of an LGBTQIA+ group gathering to play basketball on a public court in the city. They vogue and resist with their bodies around the city, challenging norms and celebrating diversity while engaging in a game that expresses identity and a form of resistance.

A young couple celebrate their Paper wedding anniversary. All is set for a romantic weekend just the two of them. But after a series of strange situations, they will very fast get embroiled on a path that has no turning back.

The story of a crazy passion and an heinous crime is also one of the first depictions of homosexuality in Portuguese literature.

A soldier from special forces with a mission.

Pedro is a young man, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but one day, he wakes up feeling different.

An experimental exploration of modern life’s emptiness, examining how the spectacle, the death of community, and the rise of individualism have reshaped our world.

On March 13, 2020, my head, my body, my home, turned into a kind of convent. This is the videographic notebook of confinement, an object made by more than a hundred hands, because my cinema, my infra-proto-cinema, must be made by everyone, and the more it is truly made by everyone, the more it will harmonize with my desire.

Tiago doesn't understand the internet. Rita doesn't understand people. Tiago is a 5th and 6th grade History teacher who, against the will of his mother and his boss, lives without a smartphone or computer, completely offline. Rita is his antisocial neighbour, who loves videogames and procrastinating. Sailorspoon and Davintji are funny and wise youtubers... Whilst Sailorspoon dreams of a trip to Japan, Davintji suffers with the love life of his brother Marco. Diana searches for love with an app... She and Marco form a romantic pair that meets over the net. All of them trying to discover who they are, and how to survive in a world that is increasingly digital. Dick pics, hashtags, youtubers, memes. Illuminati confirmed!

A two and half month journey from Buenos Aires (Argentina) to Medellin (Colombia), through some of the most amazing places in South America, immersed in the Backpacker's culture.

Two artists go out to train, they don't fit the standards of their neighborhood, their city, or their imposing culture.

José Dourado uses a double identity to be able to have fun without compromising his image as a rich heir and telecommunications shareholder. His best friend, Agenor Nabuco, makes use of this to invade José's farm and, then, he meets the seductive Cecília Feijó, his friend's niece. Agenor is Patrícia Lobato's cousin, with whom José is in love, but Aunt Augusta, Patrícia's mother, is against the relationship. Love impediments will also be imposed by housekeeper Dona Glorinha and pastor Saulo Malaquias. Then, a plot from the past appears to alter the course of the characters in the story.

Angelo is sent to Brazil to organize a major robbery for an international gang based in São Paulo, led by the Countess, whose right-hand woman is Paula. Angelo has an amorous relationship with both women, causing jealousy and rivalry between them, which is the cause of the plan's failure and, consequently, the gang's arrest.

After several years working at one of New York's largest law firms, Rui is returning to Portugal. He is coming alone, but with an American fiancée. To bid farewell to his bachelor life, Rui decides to gather the friends with whom he shared a house in college. Everything seems to be going well until his fiancée calls off the wedding, and Rui's friends decide to find him a bride before the wedding date. Will they succeed?

João and Cristiane are a pair of swindlers who want to deceive a Colonial war veteran who won 190 million euros in the lottery. João pretends to be the lost son of the winner. But they are not the only ones with the same intentions.