Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

The twin brothers who invented the "dab" tell their story.

Europe’s largest lithium mine is about to start operating in Trás-os-Montes, much to the dismay of the local inhabitants. Frederico Lopo induces an earthy sensuality and contrasts two geologies: that of mining prospection and machines, and that of roots and people.

In a tightly framed slice of suburban Lisbon, young characters grapple with juvenile bravado and the unspoken tensions of masculinity, framed through Salaviza’s spare, observational lens.

Everything goes back to the beginning, but played differently. Two different times where two souls bond. What is visible to the common mortal is the frame and a timeless feeling.

Documentary dedicated to the plastic artist Fernando Lanhas

The film presents us with a reflection on the Spanish Civil War in the Portuguese society, At a time when Salazar ruled.

In the cup final, a David versus Goliath story in the football kingdom On May 20, Desportivo das Aves reached a Portuguese Cup final for the first time. It is the story of the journey of Desportivo das Aves team and its fans, from the departure from the town of Aves to Jamor to face Sporting. A live story of the suffering of the fans outside and inside the stadium, accompanied by the narration of the game by Antena 1. "Um Dia de Futebol" is a documentary that portrays the experience of the supporters, players, and coaches of Desportivo das Aves 24 hours before, until the final moment of the Portuguese Cup match, in a historical moment.

While returning home for christmas, Mariana, finds herself suffocated by the big plans and expectations of her family.

In a game of cat and mouse, an injured girl fights for survival against an unknown man who tries to murder her.

"Cabra-Macho" discusses the stereotype of the Brazilian Northeast as being a highly sexist region, picturing the everyday of transgenders in this environment.

A group of friends decide to spend New Year at a beach house. Away from social media they find out they don't know each other fully.The drama, immersive and set in a New Year's trip, investigates the human relations and social conflicts of the postmodern generation, from the events experienced by the group of friends. It is a critique of how young people hide their problems through networks.

Ronaldo is Brazilian, from good families and has a problem. His left hand is nailed to his father's table. The reason: Ronaldo has been abusing cocaine which has led him to accumulate debt. Their executioners did not forgive the fact that they had to travel once more, and again in vain, to Ronaldo's parents' cottage where he has been hiding. After confronting some characters (all of them seem sinister in Ronaldo's distorted gaze), the Brazilian manages to solve his problems, as if from a dream.

Eurovision: The Most Controversial talks about the controversy that happened at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2024 in Sweden.

"UNFINISHED" represents a life left on hold. This film depicts a repetition of the days that follow. A mental spiral that seems to have no end and, because of it, everything remains unfinished. A mix of everyday reality with what goes on in the imprisoned mind that, due to its own problems and frustrations, ends up becoming increasingly involved in its thoughts and stuck in a routine at home, while life outside remains "unfinished."

What was the Estado Novo's (portuguese dictatorship from 1926 till 1974) relationship with homosexuals? This is the central question of Walking Shadows/Sombras Andantes, a film by André Murraças based on his play of the same name. Blending documentary, cinema, theater, animation, and archival footage, the film explores the lives of homosexuals persecuted under the Estado Novo regime. From early arrests to increased policing and acts of resistance, it uncovers hidden or double lives—ranging from everyday workers to public figures and activists. Alongside known names like António Botto, Valentim de Barros, and Júlio Fogaça, anonymous stories and police records shed light on a silenced history and the mechanisms of repression.

A group of upper class families decided to create a community and build a traditional village where they live closed to their values. Matilde, the youngest daughter of one of the most prominent families, appears pregnant after having become involved with an adult, member of the community, influential journalist and fundamental player in the conservative agenda.

The Mesa da Unidade Popular (People's Unity Table) was part of the furniture that, in the post-independence period, the Mozambican state intended to give to all families. It brought together the socialist idea of equality and social justice with the concept of national unity, a basic assumption of Frelimo for the harmonious development of the country. Today, we sit down at that table once again to revisit the process of nation building and the utopia of a more just society.

The Mediateca Onshore in Malafo, a village in Guinea-Bissau, is an archive and a club for agropoetic practices. As Amílcar Cabral talks feminism on tape, the directors speak in the mangroves about the contradictions of depicting the community.

Bandits and a well-known drug dealer plan an assault on the infamous jewel of the Baroness of Sanfins. In between, and among the experiences of three forty-year-old friends, a beautiful love story unfolds. In the end, who will get the jewel?

In summer, the Portuguese countryside is ravaged by fires. Otilia struggles between her job as a pool cleaner and the need to take care of her mother alone. Stunned by this suffocating daily life, the flames awaken in her solitude, despair and the desire to escape.

Through a virtual meeting in Buenos Aires, Tomás and Mateo bring memories of their relationship. Tomás asks Mateo for help with his new project, a film about HIV seen through affection.

We went on discovering the story of princess Wakasa who fall in love with Fernão Mendes Pinto and was exchanged for a gun's secret.

In sport everything is movement; how images are produced to record moments that will quickly cease to be current. SOMOS juxtaposes images of some moments lived between January to December 2019 in this eclectic club that is Sporting. If quickly as images become memory; will memory rise to identity?

Going up to the roof, in a movement that repeats itself in fragmented daily life.

A theft of water, a homicide, a question of honour, a tragedy in the village of Gralhas, Montalegre.

This documentary is about individual lifestyles with conscious repercussions in the collective. Because from the Nature’s point of view there is no such thing as waste. It’s the symbiotic aspect of life. The whole Nature is a unified system of interdependent variables. Each one with a cause and reaction. Freeganism is an alternative lifestyle based on the boycott to capitalism, aiming to reduce the impact in our ecosystem, rejecting any form of human or animal exploitation. This is achieved through the limited and resource-conscious consumption, as well as the rescue of waste, in a society that produces above its needs.

The transvestites of the Rio nights in testimony about their professional difficulties, moralism, repression and stardom

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.

A couple separated by death will do anything to be reunited, even invoke the goddess of eternity. Based on German expressionist cinema.

A man suffers from amnesia after an accident.

From the military planning to front-line operations of discover conquest of Mozambique by the Portuguese, to counter the Vatuas insurgency of 1894, when they were led by Gungunhana, a cunning strong African leader. Against the background of Marracuene, Coolela, Manjacaze, Chaimite and Macontene historical battles, two soldiers fight for the love of a coloni st's daughter.

Based on photographs taken on the arrest of political prisoners during the Portuguese dictatorship (1926-1974), this documentary aims to convey the mechanisms by which a dictatorial regime sought to sustain its existence throughout 48 years.

Alma wakes up every day with a new condition, suffering the most varied physical transformations that reflect her feelings of inadequacy and prevent her from having a normal daily routine. With each passing day, Alma gradually feels more alone.

Two screenwriters are in the process of creating a screenplay, conjuring some of their past, present and future ghosts, projecting their concerns and differences on the journey of the fictional characters, possibly their alter egos.

Téo, a lunar teenager, meets the new parish priest of his rural village, who has just arrived from Mozambique. As the two grow closer, they develop a spiritual bond steeped in attraction.

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.

The story of an old man who does not settle for being abandoned by his own son in a hospital, venturing with the company of a rebellious teenager in a long and troubled way in search of the family, in which will also find a new life.

On the riverside quay of the enormous container port of Lisbon two old decaying sky-blue painted buildings are located directly opposite to each other. One is closed and abandoned, the other inhabited by the two bright and inquisitive girls Ana and Matilde. Watching the closed building every single day and night the sisters get more and more suspicious. Strange phenomenons and movements behind the thick blue walls increase their curiosity. How is possible what their children`s eyes are witnessing? Who are those mysterious neighbours? How to discover old house`s secret?

Neusa, the mistress of millionaire Rodrigues, plans her own kidnapping with Rubinho, the son of a tycoon, in order to pocket the reward money. The accomplice, in partnership with the adventurer known as the Crazy Exorcist, spends all the money on parties and women. Rodrigues hires detective Beto—whose wife was murdered—to solve the case. With the help of police chief Jonas, Beto uncovers the scheme and finally, those responsible are arrested.

Alternating Super-8, digital footage and the correspondence with her brother, the filmmaker evokes their deceased mother and the Portuguese revolution, which she only gets to know through these diffracted memories.

Short film by António Palolo.

Built in the New State to control the overseas students, the House of the Students of the Empire, situated in Lisbon with delegations in Coimbra and Porto, was fundamental in the fight for independence of the Portuguese colonies. Future leaders of the Liberation Movement, like Agostinho Neto and Amílcar Cabral, passed through this meeting point. The documentary The House restores the memories of the testimonies of the survivors of the House, fictionalizing in parallel excerpts of Pepetela´s “The Generations of Utopia”.

João still lives at home with his parents. With absolutely no idea what to do with his life, he leaves the city centre to hang out in the outskirts. The abandoned factory where he spends his days is the lingering echo of a better past. What lies ahead seems worse as João comes face to face with the failure of youth.

A little girl, Ana, reads herself to sleep. As she dozes off, the physical world starts melting into an alternate reality where the contents of a book rule over the laws of physics. Now, she has to escape being swallowed by the overwhelming accumulation of printed knowledge and find her own space in a world where nothing is what it seems.

A day in the life of Marta, a raspberry grower who doesn't give up on her dreams.

“Wheels” is a film about relative motion as described by Descartes: if 2 objects are moving in the same direction and speed they seem to be still between each other. Inspired by Duchampian tradition, Pedro and João filmed a short chronicle of curved means of transportation in the tropics. Overlaying directly on the negative (camera editing) the feat of paradoxically freezing a moving bicycle wheel, a car wheel and anamorphic depiction of tire, João and Pedro constate that for that to happen everything else must be perceived as a gyroscope.

Tiago Guedes returns to Dennis Kelly, the British playwright with whom he has already enjoyed success in his dizzying descent into the depths of human complexity. After Órfãos, the director and stage director now tackles The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas, a 2013 text about the banality of evil in the person of the man that Kelly's play scrutinizes in retrospect: "Existence is not what you thought it was until now. It is not honest, it is not kind, it is not fair. Most of the world has no idea about this; they believe in God, or Daddy, or Marx, or the invisible hand of the market, or honesty, or kindness. They go through life with their eyes closed, getting beaten up and screwed over. He's like that. You're like that. But a tiny part of us, let's call ourselves the resistance, knows the true nature of life. The world is ours for the taking. We are powerful and rich and have everything, because we will do whatever it takes.