Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

Benguelê is an exaltation to the African past and to its remarkable and deep roots in Brazilian culture. Striking from the stage, without any shame, any trace of the classical technique - which, however, is present in the formation of the dancers, supports the complex choreography - the choreographer evokes, from beginning to end, Afro-Brazilian rhythms such as maracatu, candomblé and congado. Anarchy and frenzy replace the symmetry and order of the dancers on stage. Pas-deux and fouettés give way to standing beats, hips, shoulders and pelvis. The rhythmic diversity comes alive to the sound of the inspired music of composer, singer and guitarist João Bosco. There are eleven themes - specially created as the Benguelê theme music, or recreated as the chorinho 1x0 by Pixinguinha, or Tarantá and Carreiro Bebe, from folklore.

Short film released through the Gestos & Fragmentos platform during the COVID-19 quarantine.

Documentary by Arminda Sousa Deusdado on the carquejeiras of Porto, forgotten women who during the 19th century and the early 20th century brought to the city of Porto the gorse that they unloaded from the boats docked on the banks of the Douro.

Portugal, 1340. Ines de Castro and D.Pedro lived the most popular love story ever to be known in this land yet little do we know about its origins and the silent tragedy carried by Constanca.

Mother and son move into a new house, a new city, a new story.

Casa Na Comporta is one of four films commissioned to different directors for the Portuguese architecture national exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

From a certain idea of Rousseauian rural purity, “Colmeal” is settled in the small homonymous village located in Riba-Côa, also known as ghost village, due to the effects of the rural exodus and the inland desertification. In an allegorical way, quite worked on the natural elements and the sound elements, the film tells the story of a young man who lives isolated and who obsessed by a woman who comes from the city to spend her summer vacation. Gradually, the young man tries to overcome the inability to deal with his emotions, seeking to discover himself, emotionally and sexually. Márcio Laranjeira and Sérgio Brás d’Almeida are debutants in Curtas Vila do Conde and propose a return to the themes of growing pains and transition to adulthood, with young people trying to find their place in the world and to define their personality, especially in context of social and loving relationships.

A false diary on a man's journey that, more than just disappear, he aims to be nothing, to become nothing.

A series of brief, evocative scenes capturing the life of a painter—his moments of inspiration, frustration, solitude, and fleeting triumphs. From the quiet ritual of preparing his brushes at dawn to the feverish strokes of creation at midnight.

The story of Boça, a simple and friendly guy from the city of São Paulo, a typical boy from Mooca, but unlucky and living a difficult life. Unlike his father, who is a good trickster, Boça is hardworking and balances his job as an office boy with his college studies and arcade games.

In the 19th century, Hortênsia a fugitive court lady is abandoned at the altar by Isabel a bankrupt princess who decides to live a love story with Jorge, a slave she freed.

A man from a village in the interior of portugal is back to visit the family that is left. But the true reasons for his return are not clear.

Fontelonga is a village of Trás-os-Montes, in the interior of Portugal. A mirror of exile in the eyes of their own people. A reflexion where memory is the last object of beauty and redemption.

For a decade, the unexpected theater group “Os Felizes da Fé” left its mark on the late 20 century’s art map. With its street happenings, the Felizes defied all forms of authority: civil, political or moral. However, their activity stopped suddenly in 1995.

Making of the opera "Riders to the Sea".

French Invasion, 1810. After being chased out of Buçaco, five French soldiers from Massena’s army enter the home of a humble family, rob and rape a 13-year-old girl. The father and older son swear revenge and try to hunt down the soldiers before they cross the border.

The vertigos in the urban landscape take the Bird-Man back to his origins, in a metaphor about life cycles. "Bird-Man" is a film from the poetic nature of Brazilian singer, Ney Matogrosso. During the 1970s dictatorship, he broke sexual taboos with a "strange" behavior on stage and became one of the most famous brazilian singers. Inspired in Cassiano Ricardo's concrete poems and the experimental music of Ney's repertoire, "Bird-Man" explores a sound and visual lyrical aesthetic of high contrasts that approximates man to nature's feelings.

PP decides to invest all his family fortune in a new line of production of his new project for a new FAMEL motorcycle, but he doesn’t expect that someone has other plans for his project.

The Mother is one of Monteiro’s first essays on the universe of Portuguese oral culture, folktales and obscure colloquialisms. The plot revolves around a traditional tale about theft, greed, an ubiquitous mother, and the links between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Wanderings of a sordid and abandoned city of Lisbon from the graphic work of Stuart de Carvalhais

While observing others, Paula is also, herself, observed. ' Know the difference between an old maid and a spinster? The old maid does not have a choice. '

“D” wakes up in a mental institution and has disturbing memory flashes which, nevertheless, do not explain why he is wearing a straightjacket. In the grip of genuine terror, he ends his anguish by letting himself fall into the abyss of madness.

In greater Lisbon area, the name Cova da Moura has never been synonymous with well-being, education or prosperity. on the contrary, it has always been associated with the idea of violence, insecurity, danger or, at best, with lack of education and sheer poverty. Cova da Moura Island follows this neighbourhood's daily life, finding the cape verdean reflections in it and searching for the ways in which social exclusion is fought or perpetuated in the lives of its residents.

On the way to the ocean, the surf is the critical moment where the boat crosses the rippling line towards the open sea. The veil darkens and the tears mingle with the salt of the water. "Pouca Sorte" (Short Luck) is that of the fisherman that goes to the sea and brings the net empty, and is also the name of the boat of the Art Xávega's (fishing technique) companion in Praia da Tocha beach. A small fishing community that despite the modernization and conversion in tourist attraction, still conserves some traditions intact. This is their story.

Far beyond the mountains of this and the next world lies Haunting Hamlet, a place the sun prefers to shun and where day and night merge into one. Here times move so slowly it almost stands still and most of the villagers have time to kill. But among them is a boy who has no time to spare. His name is... Adolfo.

In a village from Mozambique folk tales, Nwavu, and old blind man, is running out of time to leave a descendent. With the aid of the venerable Wizard, he plans to marry the young Djamilah, who is caught by the imposition of traditions and has her freedom at risk. But Nwavu's acts will open the doorways to the spirit world, where the laws of reality don?t apply in the same way. When the plan backfires, Nwavu will have a taste of his own medicine.

After an attack of unknown origin, creatures hostile to humans emerge from the Tagus River, in Lisbon. A man and his cat fight for survival. ✨️Nominated for best Microshort at 17th MoteLX (2023) - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival

Rodrigo questions his belonging to Eclectic City, the small religious commune he grew up in.

As he struggles to finish an original composition, a young and self-doubting New York musician develops feelings for two other artists of different genders and questions if it’s possible to love more than one person at the same time.

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.

Symbolic expression of a life filled with dreams, foods and thoughts.

It's Sunday, day of rest. At the river, the father fishes and drinks, the mother sleeps, the daughter plays...

This documentary shows a typical Sunday in Mozambique's capital, tourist main attractions, an inquest in Lisbon about the perception of the people in the street about what life was like in that African colony (or, as the Government had it then, "province"), and then interviews and scenes of Lourenço Marques fishermen and a bar waitresses. African folk music and dance were used as documents and background for the text narration.

In the village of Dine, in Trás-os-Montes, Portugal, solitude deepens when, under cover of night, dogs bark outside and confirm that the cave has been stormed.

A girl approaches a divine entity that comes to the world in the form of a yellow umbrella, and ends up discovering her true self.

Documenting the workers' occupation of the Sogantal factory during Portugal's revolutionary period.

A couple is pursued by the police and citizens of a city for the crime of having invented love. In every corner of the city, on the walls of the bars, on the doors of public buildings, in the windows of the bus, even that wall ruined through radio ads and detergents in the small shop window, where no one enters the lobby of the railway station which was the home of our hope of escape, a poster denounces our love.

At Christmas dinner, Judas recounts to his strange group of friends the misadventures of his encounter with an old rival.

A young journalist and a convincing cameraman plot to film interviews without their company's permission.

Mértola, the Guadiana River, a place of ancient watermills, where flour for bread was milled. A place where birds live and people relax. Fishing boats pass by and the fish leap. The tide rises and falls, with the atmosphere changing every day. The color of the water and the landscape vary throughout the year. At the same time, Manuela Barros Ferreira left us a piece of writing entitled: “Soul”. Why do we gaze at the river?