Maria João Mayer

A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On

In today’s Tirana, Agim and Gëzim, two inseparable deaf-mute identical twin brothers in their forties, live under the same roof. Ana, Gëzim’s girlfriend, a young high-spirited woman in her thirties, visits them quite often. One evening, Agim is driving back home with Gëzim, when his sight gets blurred and a fatal accident nearly occurs. At the ophthalmologist, a few days later, the two brothers discover that due to a genetic and rare disease, they will separately, but progressively and irreversibly go blind. Slowly immersing into an unbearable silenced darkness, not being able to see the world and each other anymore, only Ana by their side, the two brothers have to make a strong decision around a cup of coffee with new shoes on.

Six Portraits of Pain

Several images follow one another to the work of António Pinho Vargas, Six Portraits of Pain, played in full.

Diamantino

A disgraced soccer star seeks redemption but is exploited by a variety of causes hoping to capitalize on his celebrity.

Saint George

In 2011 Portugal began the so-called "year of the Troika" (EU, IMF and ECB budget cuts and economic restructuring), with the level of debt among the Portuguese people reaching staggering amounts and a growing number of families and companies unable to repay their installment loans. Jorge is an unemployed boxer on the verge of losing his son and his wife, who has decided to return to Brazil. As a means of paying off his debt and persuading his wife to remain in Portugal, Jorge accepts a job with a debt-collection agency, which will drag him into a world of violence and crime.

Mountain

Day breaks on the eighth floor in a suburban neighbourhood of Lisbon and 14-year-old David’s grandfather is still in hospital. Doctors give him only a few days to live. The imminence of death and the void that it will leave force David to become the man of the house, where he lives with his mother Mónica, who is in her 30s, and his three-year-old sister.

Yvone Kane

After her daughter's death, Rita returns to the African country of her childhood to investigate the death of Yvone Kane, a former political activist and guerrilla fighter. There, she becomes embroiled in a journey into the past of a land haunted by war and evil.

João's Nightmare

João still lives at home with his parents. With absolutely no idea what to do with his life, he leaves the city centre to hang out in the outskirts. The abandoned factory where he spends his days is the lingering echo of a better past. What lies ahead seems worse as João comes face to face with the failure of youth.

Four

A look at the art of two pairs of brothers, plastic artists: João Queiroz, Jorge Queiroz; Pedro Tropa and Francisco Tropa.

The Children's Republic

In a war-torn African country, a small group of young people, led by Mão-de-Ferro, a traumatized and violent war child, arrive in a mysterious city where children, abandoned by adults, have created their own utopian republic.

Cerro Negro

Developing from an idea of diptych, the story of Anajara and Allison is told from two perspectives in continuity. If late night work complicates the life of one of them, the incarceration in jail of the other determines a cycle of separation. Salaviza's skill to direct amateur actors is showed in this film, one of his more precise works.

Rafa

Rafa is a 13 years old kid concerned with his mother, held in a police station for driving without a license. The director shows a day in the life of a teenager who lives on a problematic area and discovers that her mother was arrested because of an automobile accident.

O Dia Mais Feliz da Tua Vida

A couple sees the happiness and future threatened by a disease that can destroy body and soul. A disturbing story made ​​of silences, glances, routines ...

Luz da Manhã

On a summer's day, a mother, daughter and granddaughter's care-free day trip comes to an abrupt end. Beautiful and restrained.

The Strange Case of Angelica

A photographer, Isaac is asked by hotel owners to take portraits of their recently deceased daughter Angélica. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, she appears to come back to life just for him. He instantly falls in love with her. From that moment, he will be haunted by Angélica day and night.

Cold Day

A portrait of a first relationship, previous to the external world, the one of the family. In a winter in Lisbon, father, mother, son and daughter trace the path of a day by themselves. A film that develops through characters who have for their antagonist life itself, with nothing (and everything) heroic about it.

Arena

A young man under house arrest spends his time in the best way he can by making some tattoos. His relative peace is strangely disturbed when he's attacked and robbed by three kids from the neighborhood. From then on, he'll try to find the kids who took his money and maybe give them a lesson. But with those actions, comes the reflection of how things were and are in this place filled with violence and hostility. Is change possible?

Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl

On a train to Algarve, a young man recounts to a fellow passenger his past relationship with an eccentric young woman.

April Showers

April 1974 saw the fall of a long lasting dictatorship. The young democracy developed in the midst of much social and political turmoil. The armed wing of a leftist group changed the future of one family - the father disappears without trace, the mother denies their past, and the son grows up with unanswered questions. As a young man, Pedro is determined to reach for answers, aided by his apparently batty grandmother. Collecting clues and meeting people who would rather prefer to remain forgotten. His inner journey leads him Portugal to Spanish through the deserted roads of Alentejo. Pedro will find himself, but there is a price to pay.

Goodnight Irene

Two solitary men embark on a journey to find a missing woman...

Brave Dance

Documentary that explores the history of the Portuguese pop band ‘Heróis do Mar’. Confronting imagery of old Portugal versus modern Portugal.The ideas, the ideals, and the dynamics of popular portuguese music of the 80’s voiced by its musicians and non-musicians.

Four for None

Four people with different values and standards meet in the urban chaos of Copacabana. Rita and Waldick come from the country, and befriend two Rio de Janeiro native guys, upon arrival: the playboy and surfer Paulo Roberto and a pimp called Tim.

The Murmuring Coast

During the war of in-dependency Evita moves from Lisbon to Mozambique to marry Luís. She slowly discovers how different and disturbing life is in a country of war and when her husband is send on a military mission she starts to fight loneliness. Over time she finds out more about her husband and Mozambique than she would have imagined in her peaceful European home. Racism, violence, injustice and fatalism make life unbearable...

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Daqui p'ra alegria

Three girls from the Lisbon suburbs, Bruna, Marta and Sara, are having a bit of fun. They've discovered that people in general are prepared to give things to young, attractive and good-natured people, and they exploit this shamelessly. Francisco, a neighbour of theirs, has given up on life. He's abandoned his wife and child to take refuge far from those who might hurt him ; in effect dying. He's ashamed of this, and never ever looks at anyone. This has given him, amongst the women of the neighbourhood, the reputation of being able to tell, just by looking at a couple, how long they'll stay together. The sudden news of the death of his much loved wife, upsets Francisco's routine.

In Favour of Light

Portrait of Pedro Cabrita Reis, one of the most important artists of the young generation in Portugal as seen by one of the most famous woman director of her generation! Pedro Cabrita Reis has an important body that fills the screen with power. He creates spaces of huge dimensions where poetry rises. The documentary culminates with his participation in the last Venice Bienal with two gigantic light structures.

Sans elle...

Johnny, aged 20, can't live without Fanfan, his twin sister. There is a very particular intimacy between them. They walk together everywhere, share the same room, the same tastes, the same bike, the same camping tent. But also a conflict principle sets in. Oppressed by his overbearing need, she decides to head for the south of Portugal, the country of their parents. His dreams are shattered; he feels deeply betrayed by his sister. Caught between his father who is preparing to retire to Portugal and his mother who refuses to leave France, he tries to work out his own identity. His passion for rock music gets him involved with his sister's former lover. By following this charismatic leader preaching dubious ideology, he risks losing his "gentle half" forever. Meanwhile in Portugal, she becomes disillusioned. Will they manage to grow up without each other?

Low-Flying Aircraft

Based on a the short story "Low Flying Aircraft" by J.G. Ballard and set in a near future where humans are dying breed. Judite and André flee to a semi-abandoned apartment complex to protect their mutant child from certain death.

O Fato Completo ou À Procura de Alberto

"At first everything was relatively simple. I was looking for a boy of African origins, between 16 and 18 years old to incarnate the role of Alberto in the film I had just written. As they were not actors, I asked candidates to tell me a story of their choice. What they gave me was a lot of life, and they did it with such generosity and authenticity that I was the one concerned. Would I be able to find the same strength, the same emotion?" - Inês de Medeiros

Fleurette

A poignant personal story. Do we want to know it? Sérgio tries to understand the troubled past of his mother, Fleurette, 79 years old. Notwithstanding her resistance to his questions, little by little, throughout the film she reveals almost another life where love is closely related to politics. From occupied France and Nazi Germany to the Brazilian dictatorship and the Portuguese revolution.bright and powerful speech magnetizes the audience.

Natal 71

Natal 71 is the name of a record given to the soldiers of the portuguese colonies overseas for Christmas 1971. Niassa's Songbook is the title of an audiotape illegally recorded by soldiers during the war years, in Mozambique. They are memories from a country which was shut from the rest of the world, poor and ignorant, laid to sleep by a stale and primitive propaganda which tried to hide all the conflicts from us and kept us from thinking and recognising the repressive nature of the regime we lived in.

Foreign Land

During a time of political upheaval in Brazil, two strangers meet by coincidence in a foreign land and end up caught in the middle of a gem smuggling ring.

Pandora

It's September in Lisbon… Elsa’s young daughter leaves with her father, and Teresa, a friend’s friend, comes to stay in her room. One night the two women go out and meet Raul, a vagrant lover of Elsa. A triangle takes form. They finish the night on a boat by the name of Pandora, but in the morning Raul sails away, alone. Elsa and Teresa will start a new life...

Manual of Evasion LX94

“Manual of Evasion LX94” is a thought-provoking Dadaist film about time by the Portuguese director Edgar Pêra. It was shot in Lisbon in 1994 and stars Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson and Rudy Rucker. Time is explored from many unusual angles, while Pêra fills the screen with a wide variety of bizarre and mind-warping imagery.

Eggs

The story of an egg trapped inside a frying-pan trying to escape its fate, symbolized by a huge spatula, determined to attack him.

On the Edge of the Horizon

Spino, a pathologist, receives an unidentified body which looks familiar to him... himself, 30 years younger.

SWK4

A portrayal of Futurist artist José de Almada Negreiros, who said: "I wanted others to say of me: 'Look, a man!' The same way they say: 'Look, a dog!' when a dog passes by; or how you say: 'Look, a tree!', when there is a tree. Which means as an entity, without the use of adjectives, only as one whole: A man!"

Requiem for a Daffodil

Miguel is what is commonly known as a Don Juan. He seduces women and afterwards takes them to take a picture next to Torre de Belém. Or so it was until he met Bárbara.