Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

This modern tale tells the story of a young man ( Tunes ) who participates in illegal street fights in order to pay his father's debt. This lifestyle ends up creating huge problems in his personal life.

Helena is beautiful, educated and well succeeded. But although she lives surrounded by beauty and wealth, she has been locked at home for weeks. When her son shows up unexpectedly and asks her to look after his daughter, Helena's routine is bound to change.

Florentina Pereira dos Santos, or simply Dona Flor. She had 18 children and adopted another 28. She delivered 310 babies. In addition to being a midwife and herbalist, she was also a gold miner, cattle driver, greengrocer, weaver, and health worker.

As in the original paradise, the inhabitants of the Bissagos archipelago, located in the west coast of Africa, live according to ancient traditions and in absolute respect for nature, until a gang of drug dealers occupies their sacred islands. The medicine man dies and everything seems lost, until his young successor decides to fight the invaders to save the village.

“Some kind of popular surrealism about people that live in Northern Portugal, their relationship with donkeys and the way they live. They are so musical that it is possible to manipulate without losing their essence...” - Tiago Pereira

The first short film directed by António Ferreira, featuring Adolfo Luxúria Canibal (lead singer of Mão Morta).

A homeless man sleeps in front of an empty store when suddenly a vehicle stops and two men start to carry cases inside. Meanwhile the man tries to understand what is going on.

For over 50 years, Dallas County Heritage Society managed Old City Park. But its contract is up and is not going to be renewed. As such, 20,000 antique items from the park — ranging from dolls to quilts to office equipment — are put in an estate sale in Dallas.

A depressed girl passionate about cinema sleeps to escape her reality but is caught up by her dreams.

António (21) lives in a small town and one day goes to Lisbon for an audition at the Conservatório Nacional de Dança. On the way, he meets Sebastião (25), a musician who goes in search of a life without limitations.

The agitprop film Estas são as armas by Murilo Salles was edited together from archival images and formed one of the first works to be produced by the newly founded film institute in Maputo.

A student appears to be showing her best side, trying not to reveal what's going on underneath her mind. In the end, she runs to a place where the only person she faces is herself. She makes a final decision, all by herself, and everything remains the same.

Suspected of developing a rash, Mateo is forced by his brother to stay locked inside his room, where his loneliness starts overcome him. But is he truly alone? Or is there something else in his room?

A documentary about cycling and those who participate in it, from the point of view of various people. From South to Center Portugal, and even the UK, France and Spain, it aims to understand the passion of cyclists when it comes to this hobby and, most particularly, old-school bikes

Mozambique 1974 - the European name of the capital Lourenço Marques was deleted and replaced by Maputo. Between the delicacy and the apocalyptic, Brisa Solar reveals the little secrets of an African city that was born from a modernist dream, which led a revolution and which today sees its cultural heritage and threatened by Chinese capitalism.

Analysis of the history and memory of the Romani community that has lived for centuries in Portugal.

Félix, a Down syndrome child who is passionate about soccer gets the opportunity to take part in the main soccer team in a match against the rival school.

Roberto works hard in his bicycle shop, looks after his family and pays his taxes. One day, after many years of fixing other peoples bikes and filling in tax returns he realizes he is penniless. Like a good citizen, he decides to file for bankruptcy and while waiting in line at the tax office, he is approached by Nancy, a corrupt fiscal lawyer in search of new people to extort. She gives him her business card and the impression that her firm will help him with his dilemma and save his store from insolvency.

The first advertising film ever made in Portugal. Aiming to popularize a new brand of biscuits, Caldevilla hired the Puortollanos and had them climb the 75 meters of the Baroque Clérigos Tower. The feat gathered an unprecedented crowd in Porto, 150.000 fevered souls hanging in dread while the two showmen accomplished their half-hour climb. Upon reaching the top, the duo set a table and had some tea with, of course, the new Fábrica Invicta-brand petit beurres. From up top, they then released thousands of leaflets advertising the grandiose biscuits.

There’s something different about the atmosphere. An investigator notices that the electromagnetic waves are stronger. Unexpectedly, the answer lies in a human relationship.

My adaptation to a new city told through my YouTube consumption habits.

A red hank. A white embroidered sheet. A sudden wind. The overtaking of mourning finds, in love, its magic path.

An obsessed nun is accused of setting fire to an orphanage and killing more than 50 children in the late 1960s. Some time later, the macabre past returns, bringing to light the last of the secrets.

During a dynastic crisis in 14th century Portugal, the 10 year old Beatriz enters into a forced marriage to become the country’s new queen. At the Monastery of Sancti Spiritus in Toro, where the tomb of Beatriz is located, this story is re-enacted, re-imagined, and recreated with children of the same age. As their imagination is allowed to roam free, a different way to interact with their country’s history opens up.

A couple in search of a different life, move from the city to the countryside and confront unexpected events without breaking their union.

"I write to have a mountain of books when I die." Psychiatrist António Lobo Antunes is one of the most internationally recognized Portuguese writers. His novels, usually settled in Lisbon, are published in prestigious publishers in several countries (Christian Bourgois, Random House, Luchterhand). In Nordlund's film, the characters and scenes from his books constantly interrupt the writer's speech. Lisbon invades his home. The voices of the characters impose themselves to the writer's house. António Lobo Antunes compares his writing to a watercourse that leaves to freely find its way.

The documentary follows Augusto Macedo, the at that time oldest taxi driver in the world, through his hometown Lisbon, creating a portrait of the city and it's inhabitants.

Done in the style of an African folk tale, this film, a collaboration between European and African countries, is said to be among the most elaborate, high tech film in African film. Exquisitely photographed and filled with archetypal figures to create a poetic look at nature's revenge against those who would exploit her. It is set in the forest village of Amanha Lundju, a place where the birth of children is celebrated by the planting of a tree. The trees are considered spiritual twins. But for every tree planted, the rapacious state destroys many more for firewood and lumber.

On the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, I made a documentary about Álvaro Cunhal. Now, on the centenary of the 1926 military coup, it seemed only fitting to make one about Salazar. Conceived as a diptych, the film brings together figures such as the housekeeper, the cardinal, the minister of propaganda, the nurse, and the shoeshiner, who—through their memories—recount stories we all believed had not been forgotten.

Masks, bananas, dreamlike landscapes and apes. On a night like many others, a sleepless neighbour discovers suddenly that there is a whole shocking planet upstairs. Filmmaker Alexandre Sousa, in an agile animation with an amusing and absurd tone, reflects on the isolation in our society, on the creation of imaginary spaces alienated from the grey outside world, about dreams and dreamed realities.

A man is haunted by the ghost of a spider crab.

The story is about a young ghost starting her training, she needs to ask for help from a Helper to get back to Earth on Halloween and be reunited with her family before the portal closes.

Edmund Husserl observed: "All perception is a gamble", which Robert Anton Wilson expands upon when he suggests that "[others] just have a different reality tunnel, and every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world, if we are willing to listen." All seen through the mirror of João Queiroz’s art.

Someone was crying, yes, I'm not hearing things.

Emilien, a hypochondriac and piano teacher in a small town in the Vercors region of France, lost his loved one in an accident six months ago, and is experiencing a difficult period of mourning. His well-adjusted daily routine between the cemetery, the pharmacy and the music school is suddenly disrupted by visits from his late beloved.