Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

A man's reality smashes as he looks for a woman he met and vanished in the streets of São Paulo, Brazil, while he tried to regain the love he though he once had.

Forty years ago, Sério Fernandes was a television advertising director and owner of one of the most successful advertising companies in Portugal. That's when he decides to leave everything to focus on his own movies. Nowadays, Sério Fernandes is known as the master of Oporto’s school.

Employee exploited by her employer changes her life by winning the lottery.

Tiaga tells the story of a poor old woman, played by Isabel de Castro, to whom a good wizard offers the gift of youth to reward the help she provided him. A version of “Faust” seen through the female eye and featuring some unusual moments, such as a shot of a black goat while José Afonso sings, as well as nightmare sequences in which Tiaga is chased by the devil.

The subtle but persistent feeling of constantly being out of place.

How do women, who have lived affective relationships that involved some form of violence, live and relate to the world? "Anastácias", portrays the lives of five black women from communities in the Jabaquara region, on the southern outskirts of São Paulo, from the premise of affection.

From a dramatic chapter to the eternal ecstasy of a great achievement. The documentary "Mosaico" tells details and behind the scenes of the recovery from the injury suffered by player Diego Ribas, shirt 10 of the Clube de Regatas do Flamengo, during a match in July 2019 for the Copa Libertadores da América.

With the Tagus River serving as both backdrop and leitmotif, “Setembro” is an animated short film about a genuine Lisbon. As the narrative progresses, the city full of colors, traditions and voices quickly gives way to gentrified spaces and foreign tourists’ voices, which now overlap the locals’, turning Lisbon into a new place. With no space for its former intimacy, the city transforms itself, a process that moves it ever further from its residents

In an inverted world, where art oscillates between a political decoration and a conversation between illuminated people, someone in the antipodes of art attempts to undo the mirage and, facing the ghosts, in the centre of the world, thinks of the noise that could save him.

A granddaughter and her grandparents talk on the phone constantly for a while. Memories of the time that were together take over the conversations and create the need to meet.

Launch of a competition, organized by the newspaper O Século, entitled Statues of Portugal.

Bráulio is a rich man, and the patriarch of the family. At one of the many boring dinner parties his family gives, he meets a guest that preferes to hide under the table.

Just another normal day, like any other in the last few years.

Silêncio - Vozes de Lisboa (Silence - Voices of Lisbon) is a documentary set amongst the backdrop of a gentrified Lisbon. Following the footsteps of Céline - a local foreigner who has lived in Portugal for 20 years - we are introduced to Ivone Días and Marta Miranda, two female singers from different generations who fight for the survival of their art and their community. Their common language is Fado, a traditional style of music that talks about the daily struggle of living. With the lyrics of fado songs taking us through the story, the film explores the relationship between fado singers and the ever-changing world around them.

After years missing, the case of Laís Siqueira is solved.

An “artist film” that crosses Karl Martin, Martin Heidegger and the Communist Party’s Manifesto.

Nobody knows the exact number of Portuguese fishermen that died in the cod fishing campaigns, during the dictatorship decades of the XXth century. Buried in the sea, or in faraway places in Newfoundland and Greenland, those sailors were left behind by the same country that glorified their role in the national efforts to rebuild the image of Portugal as a Country of seamen and navigators. Telling the stories of some of these anonymous men is our way of rescuing them from the oblivion, and of taking them – or their memory, at least - back home.

Teo, a private detective, never decides to heed his fiancée Sonia's requests to abandon his dangerous profession and go work for her father, a wealthy industrialist. A new case always comes up, causing Teo to postpone his visit to his future father-in-law. However, one day he is hired under mysterious circumstances: he receives orders from a woman he doesn't know to do something that is still unclear. Nevertheless, the woman pays him handsomely and gives him a vague idea of the case. To his surprise, as soon as the woman leaves, Teo is attacked by four men. Recovering from his injuries, he begins to investigate his client...

In an imaginary future, Portugal consists of an association of states - North and South - with zones of specific influence. City under vigilance, Lisbon is inhabited by a repressed and militarized population. Maria and António stand out in this city and surrender themselves to a submersive love. 1978

Peter is facing a relationship never experienced. Johnny has come a long way and follows the cycle of his life. Leave, stay, come back. SAILOR recounts an unexpected encounter, inspired by the song "Surabaya Johnny" by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

"Cape Verde is an archipelago situated 500km off the West Coast of Africa. On the island of Santiago lives Mano Mendi, the last player of the cimboa, a one-string violin used to accompany the traditional batuque music. Through the portrait of Mano Mendi and the learning experience of To, a music teacher in the capital city of Praia, the film shows us how this music is rooted in the rhythms of everyday life."

Overwhelmed by the melancholy of departure, Tom spends his last day in Lisbon driving his cherished old car, Stella, through its old and changing streets. Confined within its familiar interior, he bids farewell to friends, lovers, and the possessions that made the city his home. As evening falls, he meets Custódio, the prospective buyer who, like Tom, sees Stella as much more than just a car.

A little girl struggles to fall asleep, but each time she closes her eyes, mischievous little imps emerge from the dark to play and tease her until dawn.

Through a city that carries the weight of broken expectations and tough absencies, we follow the day of three young adults. César who got into a photoshoot by accident, Chloé who hopes to find a place to do her own work, and Helena who is back in her town for some days, only to find the living shadow of a loss.

A young couple kisses while waiting for the bus, completely oblivious to everything around them. The bus leaves, the day goes by, the kiss goes on.

The past and the present as a single time.

Young Gabriel worries about forgetting his late father’s face; Isabel, a single mother, frets about her son and how she will make ends meet; Firmino questions his sense of belonging after losing his garden which he considered his portal to Cape Verde. The lives of Gabriel, Isabel and Firmino intertwine in Nuno Boaventura Miranda’s The Last Harvest. Miranda offers an intergenerational portrait of a Cape Verdean community and diaspora living in Lisbon as they grapple with questions of identity and a shared longing for connection.

An experimental documentary made with footage material recorded from the computer desktop screen, about four Brazilians who have created Youtube Channels to talk openly about their HIV status. They explain how this platform disseminates information, counter prejudice, and offers positive images of those living with HIV. A fresh an inventive look at activism in the Web 2.0 era.

A documentary shot in Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Portugal that includes a series of interviews and testimonies of people who lived through the period of the anti-colonial war and liberation in Guinea-Bissau. This documentary, directed by Diana Andringa and Flora Gomes, sets the tone for a debate around the themes of reconciliation and historical memory in the post-conflict period of the Portuguese colonial war.