Discoveries from Portugal World Cinema

A subverted promotional film for tourism in Portugal.

Memories lead a mind… Poetry leads a life. In a final goodbye, Sofia finds pieces that remind her of her grandmother, from poems to Super 8 films recorded in Serra da Arrábida. She searches for fragments of her childhood and testimonies of a life in a now uninhabited house. These memories are evoked through the objects and scenarios visited as the film unfolds. Ultimately, only memories remain, small traces of life, moments.

Expression is a part of being human. Water is the source of an impossible life that rocks and consolidates the figure of a young woman.

An experimental/art-leaning short, screendance film in which four human characters appear stuck in an interior, futuristic landscape outside of time. As they struggle with themselves as well as with each other, they seem to reach upon dance (whether experienced or internalized, solitary or otherwise) as an instinctive/conceptual way out of an inescapable void.

Robalo is a victim of bullying at school. He will embark on a intense journey to find out how to stop it.

Stuck in a cycle of grief, a young woman continually relives her memories of a ruptured life. Detaching from her past is the only way to break the cycle and be reborn.

Ana is in her thirties and unable to share physical intimacy. She has recently started dating and feels increasingly anxious. Her therapist, who is also dealing with her own personal issues, incites Ana to overcome her fears and experience pleasure. As their stories intertwine, unexpected challenges emerge.

A group of five people wake up in the middle of a forest without knowing why. They realize that they have to work together to escape, but nothing is as easy as it seems.

The West is not a primitive realm simply because the Sun sets there. But if it were primitive, an imaginary tribe could adopt the spell of Cinderella's shoe as a mating ritual. Indeed, the less often you are chosen, the more your hoped-for partner becomes a Messiah, a ghost of Prince Charming. In any case, if there isn’t such thing as a generalized cold war between male and female, there is at least a wall separating the mythic elements that define the genders: a kiss is a form of eternity as deceitful as that which brings together the Sun and sea.

There are some fundamental principles regarding the construction of an acoustically healthy society, one where we can exist within the sounds of life. Respect towards voice and words, sonic awareness, the awakening of the sense of hearing. To preserve the sounds that tend to fade out, while remaining open to the sounds that spring out of each technological stride. To build an aural idiom that interprets its own symbolism. To accept the silence, enforcing it in the due moments. And, above all else, to listen.

Girl meets girl ... through a security camera. Can Miriam leave the totem and realize her fantasy? Or will she let the unscrupulous Karen stay with Brenda's love?

Woman seeks house to domesticate. Wants sensitive, versatile space, any age, with sense of humour. Offers availability of feelings. Has references. Schedule to be arranged.

In a mountain village in the north of Portugal, a murder occurred. A sixteen-year-old boy leaves the house barefoot, under the cold night, towards the forest. For thirty kilometres he walks, up and down the mountain. He has one single thought in his head.

A carousel-esque pocket-movie set in a Florentine piazza.

Director Júlio Bessa, who suffers from "stage fright" will make an introduction to his latest film at Festival de Cinema Luso Brasileiro in Santa Maria da Feira.

A photo of two indigenous boys brought by force to Europe opens an investigation of the past with meditations on the filmmaker’s own family using roughly textured analogue footage. A monument for the indigenous victims of the rubber trade in Peru.

The documentary shows the academic movement and its several crisis by the players perspective and the way they contributed and involved themselves in the movement as students and Men. The main focus will be on the players and the academic leaders in this process during the 60’s.

The video comprises body exploration with red light and slow motion to convey to the viewer the idea of strength, power, fear and the concept of the underworld. Using electronic music, upside-down plans and timed cuts, I wanted to convey a self-image of surreality and non-conformity with reality. The title, “Hades”, makes explicit reference to the God of Death and the Underworld in Greek mythology, and serves as a guide for the planned sensations of agony, pleasure, revelation and space-time detachment. This is how I see myself, this is how I think I should be.

Set against the looming backdrop of growing urban towers, a teenage boy navigates the fragile space between adolescence and adulthood.

“Prune me in January Tie me up in February Dig me up in March And you’ll see what I’ll do to you.”

Two lovers hit the road for a holiday. They find a car that has been hit, and a dead woman by the accident. Two production assistants try to leave the set, but all the roads seem to hit the same spot, where they find a dead woman that walks.

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

Letters from Angola is a voyage into a forgotten past where several stories intersect - that of Angolan-born filmmaker Dulce Fernandes and those of the Cubans who fought in the Angolan war. A journey through today's Cuba, the film uncovers the lost connection to a land left behind and it's a poetic reflection on the fragile place of the individual in the midst of the tectonic movements of history.

Infinity infinity, on the imagination of matter approaches a group of children who gather to play in an urban vegetal environment in the Massarelos valley, in Porto, while also accompanying certain practices and reflections within the student context of the local Fine Arts Academy, in order to rethink exploratory group movements, art education, childhood in continuity with creative potential, experimentalism, and the sense of home, institution, and city.

A silent, black and white, 1930s advertisement film for CUF fertilizers, starring the legendary Vasco Santana in a story where the dissatisfied Manuel wonders why he doesn’t get rich just from the efforts of his work.

Living alone in the highest mountains of Portugal, Carlos has spent years writing letters to his beloved late wife, suspended in a time that no longer exists. His solitary world is disrupted when a filmmaker, on a quest to find a mysterious lake, stumbles upon him. What begins as a chance encounter soon evolves into a deep, yet fleeting friendship. To her, Carlos slowly reveals the depth of his grief, his memories, and his inner abyss. In their shared moments, the boundaries between their lives blur, offering both a glimpse of healing amidst the shadows of longing.

Two people share a conversation in a park bench.

A ruined stockbroker collaborates with a friend of his late father's on the completion of a documentary.

Composed of 3 episodes based on the biographies of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, Marie Antoinette & Friedrich Nietzsche. Having different life stories, they have in common a time of devastation in their personal relationships. Those moments of downfall bind them together.

This short film tells the story of a successful lawyer who lives an unhappy marriage. She meets Marina, a young writer for whom she falls for and lives a romance. After that, she starts questioning her life choices and let herself live intensely.

Conceição escapes from the Nursing Home with the help of her grandaughter Lia. The two of them go on a trip to the coast of Algarve in order to watch a bird called Calcamar.

In Porto Santo, a small island next to Madeira the drought rages and Gonçalves, a local farmer, tries to overcome the catastrophe, with the help of Bastiana, whom he dearly loves. João Venâncio, who refuses to share the water of his field, tries to steal her heart. One day Gonçalves decides to fight for his beloved, beating violently Venâncio in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

A man who rips his own morals, where broken attitudes lead to a miserable glory. The risks of living ones limits.