Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

A young woman ponders about the aspects and implications of romantic relationships.

A observational documentary about a gender reveal party through the eyes of the main guest.

A young business man gets trapped inside the clock of a train station.

Remi and Bastien are friends, easygoing, and soon to be nuclear engineers. They are about to choose between friendship and career. But in this world, there are no good or bad choices. There are only choices... And the choice is Remi's.

Following Marta's wake, her five best friends decide to spend the night at a rural tourist getaway that Marta never got around to opening. The night becomes a long, mazelike journey through their interconnecting friendships, ultimately leading to deep self-revelations about life, themselves and a friendship that survived it all. But will this friendship be able to survive death?

Ana is spending the holidays with her family. The setting is perfect for relaxation and for wondering. Next to the house, workers are building a pond. Attracted by it, Ana senses a presence, someone familiar yet still unknown. Alexander David captures on screen all the beauty of a childhood self-discovery and the first uncertain steps taken outside of parental control. Evocative and mellow, Water Hazard explores queer identity with a delicate and empathetic eye.

The troubles of a separated couple, the adventures of a bookseller in the home of a lascivious woman, and the confusion of a businessman from São Paulo.

“1618” is a film about the inquisitorial visit to Porto that encountered resistance from priests, ordinary citizens and the city authorities themselves, all accustomed for centuries to living alongside the Jews.

She mesmerised the crowd. The first sight would rapidly disappear and anyone who would get closer would also be surprised. It is not known if she did it for "beauty or precision", as Guimarães Rosa used to say. But the truth is that stereotypes would be destroyed as soon as she would fetch her followers. And revelations would unfold. Behind her suavely acute and toned voice, there was a deep tone that only few could reach. Behind her humble upbringing, there was an uncommon sensibility and intelligence. Her disguise was her irrepressible technique. Elis was pure emotion. And singing was not her final objective, she really wanted to make people happy. This film honours Elis and creates a singular portrait of Brazil's biggest star.

This film was inspired by Marilyn Manson song "If I Was Your Vampire". In 19th century, Charlotte, a Vampire woman, falls in love with the sweet Scarlet, a human girl. They both live an intense and forbidden romance. An insult to the natural order of things, in every way.

In a haunted cemetery, the ghost of a writer dramatizes the short story “The Call of Cthulhu”, by H. P. Lovecraft, to an audience of skeletons.

An old woman is woken in the dead of night by a phone call. On the line, a stranger fights his insomnia by dialling random numbers.

The life of a Portuguese woman.

A girl wakes up on the beach without knowing where she is, but immediately recognizes a major landmark from her childhood: the Fairy Castle...

Canoas is considered by many, especially by those who are not from there, as a commuter town. Cities from metropolitan areas are usually labeled like this because of the workforce that commutes out everyday to work in the capital. In this daily movement, many times, ideas are conceived and creativity flourishes. I believe that this is one of the reasons why those cities often have a lively cultural scene. The documentary "This is Canoas not POA" makes this very clear: Canoas has a lot to show in terms of a music scene that's independent, diverse, creative, and most important, united. Bands, night clubs, studios, producers, record shops. Everything a music scene needs to develop is very well documented here. Watch it and create your own scene, start your own band!

Luanda, Angola. The streets are deserted, the buildings empty and no ships leave the harbour. What's left are ghosts and memories. Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady is inspired by journalist Ryszard Kapuściński's descriptions of the last colonial days in Angola in 1976 and the exodus of Portuguese and white Angolans from Luanda.

Pedro gets home at dawn. Before the young boy falls asleep, his lonely mother drags him to the beach.

Let the most distracted of men delve into his deepest dreams: put him on his feet, move his legs, and he will infallibly lead you to water.

A controversial witch fights to help A.D.R. Galegos, a football club from Barcelos, win the local Super Cup.

Two sisters, 96 and 98 years old, live in an old house situated opposite the school where they used to teach in the centre of Portugal. Their care and attention is shared between the house and the garden. Their daily life, serene and unhurried, is full of memories and small tasks. They do not make plans for the future – it just happens day after day - like tapestries which are made with neither paper pattern nor prior drawing. Whilst the garden reveals the passing of time, the house seems to live with quivering light and trembling breath. Illness arrives, unannounced apart from that of age itself.

The filmic ontology of the sea, of where the horizon transformed into film is cut out, is present in São Tomé and Príncipe. There, one captures the mountainous elevation, ocher and bright green, which has long been accustomed to living with the ocean.

A satirical look at Lisbon’s housing crisis, now the third most expensive city worldwide. Mass tourism and a lack of infrastructures are transforming the city into a large construction site and a perfect spot for real estate speculation.

The adventures of a couple of unruly siblings who, one fine day, decide to go out of their way to school and get involved in fanciful adventures in extraordinary worlds based on traditional Portuguese fables that evoke, for their strangeness and surrealism, Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland.

Inky sees, one night, a magical light that attracts him. Frustrated by not being able to shine, he sets out in search of this light. But for this, he will have to break with the past, to reach its luminescence and know, for the first time, the vast ocean.

On a summer's day, a mother, daughter and granddaughter's care-free day trip comes to an abrupt end. Beautiful and restrained.

Twenty-year-old Rosa leaves her two children in Cape Verde and relocates to Lisbon in the hope of giving them a better life. Caught between the harassment of gangster bosses and daily police violence, Rosa tries to find comfort in the women of the community. But her real escape is music.

Joe Valente, a luso-american, returns home with the dream of turning molice picking into a real industry. But this will cause misery for those who use the traditional methods.

Sergio answers 36 questions to make Gabriel fall in love. Did you know Glauber was a Pisces?

Alfonso Etxegarai, former ETA terrorist gang member, sets out on the road back home after decades of exile on the African island of Sao Tome and Principe, where he was deported by France and Spain in 1986.

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.

Beatriz’s young husband disappears during the brutal Kraras massacre by occupying Indonesian forces, sixteen years later she is troubled by his return; is this mysterious stranger her husband, an impostor, or a spirit?

Margarida Senhorinha, aged 69, is illiterate but records poems, songs and memories of her birthdays on a tape recorder. She’s spent forty years in her house with its garden amidst the blocks of flats of an ever expanding Cacém. Now, her entire life depends on her landlord. She’s at risk of lose her house, perhaps to make way for yet another tower block. A living memory of rural Portugal that has come face to face with urban Cacém, Margarida Senhorinha asks simply: “and now where do I go?”

The film offers a glimpse into the life of five vampires as they travel through space, carrying life to a faraway Earth-like planet. After all, in space it is always night and, having eternity at their disposal, vampires are the ideal candidates to roam the stars. In their solitude, away from societal constraints and expectations, this family of vampires recalls and reimagines their past lives, guiding the visitor through an open-ended narrative about the role of fiction in our lives, and in particular in lives marked by gender dysphoria or transgender experiences. (João Mourão & Luís Silva)