Margarida Vila-Nova

Um Lobo entre os Cisnes

"Um Lobo entre os Cisnes” tells the story of Thiago Soares, a boy from the suburbs of Rio who leaves hip hop behind and embarks on the world of classical ballet. His story takes on unexpected turns through his troubled relationship with his mentor, the Cuban Dino Carrera, who improves Thiago's talent until he reaches stardom by becoming the principal dancer of the Royal Ballet in London.

Will-o’-the-Wisp

On his deathbed, his royal highness Alfredo, King without a crown, is taken back to distant youth memories and the time he dreamt of becoming a fireman. The encounter with instructor Afonso from the fire brigade, opens a new chapter in the life of the two young men devoted to love and desire, and the will to change the status quo.

Pê

Pê, a man with terminal cancer, wanders through his city, Lisbon. Throughout the day, he is confronted with a reality unaware of his suffering while he prepares his imminent death by writing a farewell letter to his daughter. When emptying her father’s house, the daughter discovers the letter. It is the beginning of a new encounter.

Revolta

As a result of the pandemic and the economic crisis, there is a widespread revolt in the main cities of the country and Paulo and Cristina, an upper-middle-class couple with a newborn child, only do not join the popular indignation because they agreed, that same night, to organize a dinner for two friends: João, going through a divorce process that plunges him into a strange depression; and Raquel, Cristina's childhood friend who has spent the last few years crossing the planet on a journey of self-discovery. It's a night where, while the world changes outside, people reveal themselves inside, in this apartment where the confrontation between the real and the virtual reveals the most terrible truths.

Young Mr. Cunhal

The revolutionary Álvaro Cunhal, symbol of Portuguese communism and political giant of the 20th century. He is nothing less than a larger-than-life figure, now examined by João Botelho’s camera, in a detective-minded film, in which the early years of the life of the historic leader of the Portuguese Communist Party are explored. In between, excerpts from his own books are staged for the spectator.

Empire Hotel

The Empire Hotel is a 30-year-old landmark in Macau's old quarter, inhabited by characters with their own stories and struggles. It is also Maria's home. One day, the burden of keeping lives together and the hotel standing falls on her shoulders. A young man who left Macau two decades ago returns, intent on revenge and reclaiming his mother's fortune – half the hotel. Inside the casino, Maria sings Fado and exotic dancers perform. It is against this illusory backdrop that the man lays eyes on Maria for the first time; they’re both mesmerized. The film cuts back and forth between film noir-style scenes of Macau’s past and present.

Equinox

I think I'll remember you, everything, but I'm not sure.

Between the Shadows

Natália, trapped in a tedious routine, leaves in search of a stolen heart. In a surreal world where hearts are the common currency, she endures several perils, in order to decide if she wants to give her heart up or keep it for herself.

Love Love

Marta and Jorge have been a couple for seven years. All their friends think they are living a perfect romance. Too perfect, perhaps, for the despair of all: Bruno, who is much younger than Marta but madly in love with her; Lígia, who is Bruno's sister and Marta's best friend and would love to see her brother happy; Carlos, Jorge's friend, who maintains a superficial romance with Lígia while secretly in love with Marta; and for Jorge himself, who is afraid this idyllic romance will imprison him and, convinced that his love and his lover's desire to marry will take away his freedom, decides to show her the way into Carlos arms.

Letters from War

In 1971, António Lobo Antunes' life is brutally interrupted when he is drafted into the Portuguese Army to serve as a doctor in one of the worst zones of the Colonial War – the East of Angola. Away from everything dear he writes letters to his wife while he is immersed in an increasingly violent setting. While he moves between several military posts he falls in love for Africa and matures politically. At his side, an entire generation struggles and despairs for the return home. In the uncertainty of war events, only the letters can make him survive.

Na Escama do Dragão

A reporter and a camera operator from a Macau TV channel embark on a journey to south of China.

Mysteries of Lisbon

The tragic story of the many lives of Father Dinis, his dark origins and his pious works, and the different fates of all those who, trapped in a sinister web of love, hate and crime, cross paths with him through years of adventure and misfortune in the convulsed Europe of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Disquiet

Lisbon, today. In a room of a house at Douradores Street, a man invents dreams and theorizes about them. The essence of the dreams itself becomes physical, palpable, visible. The text itself materializes in its musicality. And, in front of our eyes, this music can be felt with the ears, brain and heart. It spreads itself in the street where the man lives, in the city that he loves above all and over the entire world.

True and Tender is the North

Adaptation of a 1987 novel by Agustina Bessa Luis, a multi-generation exploration of a wealthy family with a mysterious past and a house on the island of Madeira.

Corruption

A crime drama based on the life of a woman who lived for years with a man that was the head of a corruption network in the Portuguese football world.

The Fatalist

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese countryside to an unspecified destination, the traveling pair embark on a series of highly philosophical discussions. Flowing with tales of his life in the military and previous sexual escapades, Tiago trades a series of tales with his rapt passenger, including the story of a vengeful spurned lover who plots revenge on the nobleman who rejected her by transforming a prostitute into a society lady and convincing him to marry the tainted bride.

The Miracle According to Salomé

Portugal, 1917. The country is experiencing a great political and social agitation and it is said that in Fatima the virgin appeared to three little shepherds. Salomé, a young lady from the province, is one of the many girls who cheers Lisbon brothels, but she is such a special girl that a rich man invites her to live in his house and presents her to the high society of Lisbon. But her past will not stop chasing her and Salomé, who thought that this would be the beginning of a new life, will eventually lose everything by becoming an involuntary character of this miracle that agitated the country...

A Falha

Twenty-five years after leaving school, a group of former students decide to organise a reunion. But, contrary to expectations, these "old boys" realise that time has accentuated their differences. The atmosphere is tense, the conversation taut and the old grudges resurface in no time.

Amo-te Teresa

Amo-te Teresa tells the forbidden love story of Teresa and Miguel, aged 35 and 15, respectively. Teresa is a doctor and, after a frustrated love life, she decides to abandon Lisbon and returns to her native land. Immediately, a strong attraction forms between Teresa and Miguel, a friend of her oldest son.

Dédé

In this retelling of the story of Hamlet, the young man is a soldier on leave to attend his widowed mother's marriage to his uncle - a marriage which is unpleasantly near in time to the death of his father. Every element of Shakespeare's tragic story is present, except that, this time, Dede refuses to kill anyone, no matter how persistent his father's frustrated ghost is.

The Jester

Set four years after the Portuguese revolution and the simultaneous loss of the Portuguese empire in Africa, the story concerns a director who sells guns to finance his play.