Boa Alma

Short documentary about football (soccer) supporters in Portugal

A theatre having national as part of its name, at the top of a square, reflecting a country’s history. But which one? This is a voyage through the various narratives about D. Maria II National Theatre, forged through the intentions of the several regimes that intended to convey their own ideologies within the theatre’s mission. This is also the story of those who fought against it, opposed the institution and became part of it. How can one become heir of these stories, even if never having set foot inside.

In Lisbon 1950, John, 13, decides to invade the neighborhood of prostitutes, nobility and sailors, starting a new stage in his life. Today this neighborhood is reflected in a scattered public debate centered on its night life.

Mónica Calle is fighting with her theatre company to remain an actress, a woman, in a society where the place of art is constantly challenged. She draws this strength from Zona J, a district in the periphery of Lisbon, where she has set up her new place of creation, surrounded by former prisoners.

This documentary shows a peculiar vision about theatre in general and O Bando in particular, on the bases of João Brites' directing the showcase of “ENSAIO SOBRE A CEGUEIRA” (essay on blindness), written by José Saramago.

How would you react if you couldn't see? In rehearsing the theatrical adaptation of "Blindness", by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the company "O Bando" made the experience. The actors lived 24 hours blindfolded in an abandoned hospital. How would you react if you could see again?

Camila is a Portuguese therapist who works at Rio de Janeiro State University, where she attends Glória, the university's elevator operator. Throughout the sessions, Camila faces a very violent reality, since Glória was raped by her own father as a child and her brother Jonas is a dangerous bandit that is in prison. Increasingly frightened by the reports she hears, she feels threatened at the same time that Glória sees her as essential in her life.

About to turn 35 years old and in the imminence of having to give up his music, Samuel comes to Lisbon to do a concert. He stays over at Teresa's, the attractive mother of his girlfriend, a woman who resists getting old. During 3 days, accomplices and inert, they create a silent intimacy, feeling time overcome them without knowing where to go.

In 1917, outside the parish of Fátima, Portugal, a 10-year-old girl and her two younger cousins witness multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, who tells them that only prayer and suffering will bring an end to World War I. As secularist government officials and Church leaders try to force the children to recant their story, word of the sighting spreads across the country, inspiring religious pilgrims to flock to the site in hopes of witnessing a miracle..

In Lisbon, Claudia offers guided tours in and out of the city. At night, she kills time with her sister in a modest apartment. In Lisbon, lonesome Martinho is fluent in Italian and guide tourists all around town. In Lisbon, a band is jamming. They perform improvisational noise jazz. In Lisbon, a mysterious phenomenon fills the air. Claudia and Martinho’s lonely hearts will discreetly meet to the sound of music.

After the attack on Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris, Ivan, the frivolous son of a prominent Argentine journalist, embarks on a journey pursuing different geopolitical events around the world.

Nuno, a boy of nine, runs away from home on the night of the 24th of April 1974. He hides in a mysterious building that is being abandoned in great haste. People are running down the stairs, cars are leaving, finally Nuno and a dog are the only ones left. They become friends and fall asleep together. In the morning they wake up with screams from the street. Nuno thinks that it is his mother calling for him and runs to the window. The street its full of people, tanks and soldiers. It’s the 25th of April. And Nuno believes that it was his mother who made the revolution just to find him.

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.

Rui is in the process of separation from Silvia, his wife and John, his son, realizing that his father can not get out of this situation and that he will never be happy, decides to ask for help from the mythical Bolivian hero "El Justiciero".

Scheherazade narrates three more tales, supposedly selected from the 470th, 484th and 497th nights of her ordeal: “It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a Judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence. A runaway murderer will wander through the land for over forty days and will teletransport himself to escape the Guard while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad!

Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal.

Francisca, a beautiful 50-year-old widow, prepared a peaceful future for herself. In an unexpected outburst, she grabs an opportunity for change and embarks on a sailboat called ‘Hovering Over the Water’.

The film INSERT was conceived has part of MEMOGRAMA by Filipa César, an installation that approaches the history of Castro Marim, a village in the southeast of Portugal, known for salt production and as a location for banishment and forced labour. The translation of sin into salt. The film INSERT creates staged images on the landscape of this place and offers a set for the announcement of a forbidden encounter.

The making of of a making of. The Shooting of a feature. An unpaid intern. One theft. One making-of. The first movie... maybe the last.

Ana lives in a little village by the sea, with her husband and daughter. He decides to leave for a few days. That seems to be the ideal solution, because Ana needs to finish a work she has been doing for a long time. But her concentration seems threatened when she starts doing her daily walks by the village and the beach: she saves a stranger from death in the sea, meets young Alexandre and Emilia, and her friend Vera turns up in her house. And then, everything changes…

One of the Philippines' top investigators, Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, faces a deep moral crossroads. As a firsthand witness of the murderous anti-drug campaign conducted by his force, his anxiety and guilt triggers a severe skin disease, and his healing process is fraught by his dark past.

An allegorical comedy centered on two childhood sweethearts who seem destined for one another until the women of their isolated village, angered by male indifference toward the water shortage, go on a sex strike that threatens the young couple's first night of love.

Between February and July 1858, in the Massabielle cave, the Virgin appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a miserable little girl from Lourdes. A true revolution in the heart of the Second Empire that shakes the established order by his universal message of love and prayer.

Miguel (Luis Miguel Cintra) is lucky that his income will only level off if he neglects his business as a financier, and his wife and family will be well supported. Why? Because he has begun hearing noises that no one else hears, noises that bother him a great deal, and that make it impossible for him to bear human society. His wife (Jessica Weiss) is thoroughly put out by this radically changed behavior in her formerly good husband, but though she considers leaving him, she stays by his side. Deep in the mountains, Cecelia (Rita Dias), a devout, pure young cowherd, has been brutally raped by an old man. Her boyfriend (Pedro Hestnes) has killed the rapist, and fled the area. As a result of the rape, Cecelia is pregnant. One day, while driving in the mountains, Miguel gives Cecelia's boyfriend a ride. The two of them chance upon her sitting amid the rocks with her infant baby.

A 14-year-old kid, addicted to videogames, goes with his parents to a shopping mall and separates from them to go to a game store called UTOPYA. He doesn't come back. His parents get in despair, and his father tries everything he can to bring him back.

Pierre, a middle-aged tourist guide, is the victim of a sudden failure : he does not recognize anything about him any longer. He goes back home and in his apartment he finds a mysterious young man who tells him he is here to avenge a young woman who has taken her own life. What share of responsibility does Pierre hold in this situation?

Directed and animated by André Carrilho; Script and music by J. P. Simões; Produced and edited by Nuno Amorim; Inbetweening, tracing and colouring by Cathy Douzil; Sound by Paulo Curado; 3D modelling and rendering by Vitor Costa 1997-2007

A bizarre and tragic ballad of an impossible love between a nameless topographer and Leonor in a swamp soon to be destroyed by the forces of Man. She (Teresa Salgueiro, ethereal voice of Madredeus) is the “swamp-flower”, protégée of a Socratic Director (and his goat Plato). In a world without women, she is kept safe from the temptations of the flesh by her strict and grotesque Aunt. The sound-track entirely played by the workers (fado and bossa nova singers) reveals parallel narratives of suspicion and conspiracy that unfold to the pace of the unconscious leading to a confrontation between Man and River. Inspired by a hypnotic story by Branquinho da Fonseca (1905-1974).

Laura doesn't know what to do with her loneliness. She gets involved in multiple games of seduction, unable to go home alone, without someone to share her affections with. She confides in her sister, Sara, they share dinners, they confide their fears. Laura feels she has to change, to escape the chaos that her life has become, especially when her children surprise her with a stranger in her bed. She then seeks out her mother, as if trying to reconcile with her.

This is the story of a young Mozambican footballer called Eusébio, a gifted athlete destined to great achievements, coveted by rival clubs, Sporting and Benfica, which ends up hiring him. Blackmail, kidnapping attempts, ministers involved, press hysteria and huge money offers make the story of this football transfer into a saga evolving between the two continents. It ends up when the legend begins: with Eusébio’s first match at the Benfica Stadium.

In oPorto there is a club, Imperatriz, where everything is permitted. A moment in which all intersect in the dark night.