Imitação de Vida

At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads an expedition under the Spanish crown in search of the first westward route to the Spice Islands. He embarks on a perilous journey across the uncharted Pacific, where his fleet faces starvation, mutiny, and the psychological toll of endless seas. Upon reaching the shores of Cebu, Magellan is pulled into a fatal conflict with the natives by his drive to spread Catholicism, culminating in his tragic doom.

The disappearance of his wife leaves Fernando, a quiet geography teacher, completely devastated. Aimless, he assumes another man’s identity as a gardener on a Portuguese estate, where he forms an unexpected friendship with the owner, stepping into a new life that isn’t his own.

Burma, 1917. Edward, a civil servant for the British Empire, jilts his lovestruck fiancée Molly the day she arrives to be married. As he flees into an unexpected odyssey across Asia, the free-spirited Molly-amused by his moves-follows in pursuit, embarking on a globe-trotting cat-and-mouse chase.

At the age of 71, a highly regarded writer, José Cardoso Pires, suffers a major stroke and loses his memory and the ability to relate to the rest of the world. Everybody seems to defy the famous author to write another novel that recounts this adventure telling his "last story", the most conclusive of his career, the one of his accidental journey to the clear shadows territory.

1920s. Vitalino, a small farmer from São Vicente sees his father die of the epidemic which decimated the country. Some years later, of all the brothers, Vitalino is the strongest and takes his father’s place in the house. But the village is too small for his aspirations and he decides to head to Brazil, leaving his sisters in charge of the household. In parallel with Vitalino’s story, If I Were a Thief… I’d Steal portrays the world of Paulo Rocha rummaging through his films and ghosts over the years.

October 2019, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (UK). Three months before Brexit. Hundreds of Portuguese migrant workers pour into town, seeking work at the local turkey factories. Tânia (The Mother of the Portuguese), a former worker in these poultry plants, is now married to an English hotel owner. She is the perfect facilitator for the Portuguese workers, but dreams of becoming a British citizen and leaving this dirty business behind by transforming her husband’s derelict hotels into refurbished senior citizens homes.

A largely plotless, fado-scored journey through the gloomy cobblestone streets, zombie bars, and fetid basements of a sordid harbor town populated by German-speaking sots and Portuguese guest workers. An unhappy young couple, Leni and Anton, quarrel and split separately into the rat’s ass of the evening. Everyone is looking for love, but no one finds any—although Leni does pick up a trick.

A family with a long history (and many members) gathers around a table in a mansion in southern Portugal. The region has transformed from a depressed area into a thriving tourist destination. Kisses, hugs, and greetings quickly turn into complaints and reproaches surrounding the big issue: What should be done with Daddy’s house? It is a tempting piece of cake, laden with rich family memories. But progress cannot be stopped.

In 1810, Joaquim, Ana and their two kids are separated by the imminent Buçaco battle, while Lord Wellington and Commander Masséna prepare their armies.

12-year-old Miguel is punished because he has not done his homework properly: he must stay at his aunt's inn for holidays. First bored, then a friendship begins between him and other inn's regular holiday-makers, like maid Luisa or fisherman João. But doctor Fernando's arrival is going to overwhelm the place's peaceful life and to change Miguel's mind.

In mid-September 1992, journalist Guida Fontes have to go to Luanda to cover the elections in Angola. In the meantime, she had committed herself to discovering and interviewing the poet Júlio Vera. In 1988, he wrote a series of poems in which he mysteriously anticipated the fall of the USSR. Guida has only 12 days to complete the mission.

Roberto is one of those men to whom simulation has become the greatest art. He is an unmoved, inscrutable, mysterious man. But the truth is that Robert feels an intimate, deep tedium. The boredom of those who have already exhausted all the pleasures of life. The only thing still surprising him is the fact that nothing surprises him anymore. One evening he has an overwhelming encounter with a woman. For his own bewilderment, he discovers the sublime horrors in which the woman has sank.

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!

Pavese considered Dialogues with Leucò his best work. Eloquent and at the same time sententious and fragile, but implausible among humanized gods, demigods, heroes, and other pagan figures of Greek mythology, who question, through the imaginary of myths, the society of contemporary man. Out of a time and a certain space, and thus, and like all myths, always current.

Algarve, late 90s. Following the death of her grandmother, Milene - a strong young woman full of life despite a slight mental handicap - divides her life between her family of notables and a Cape Verdean family that keeps her going, whom she met when her grandmother died. The wind that whistles in the cranes plunges us into the world of two families against the backdrop of Portugal's recent past.

As a virus spreads throughout Brazil, a young filmmaker goes back to his village and tries to rekindle his relationship with his father. But as they become closer, stranger events start to happen, making their connection more difficult.

In a new land where everyone receives a new name and begins again without a past, Simón takes responsibility for David, a child he met on the crossing to a new life. Driven by an inexplicable conviction, he sets out to find the boy’s mother despite the fact David remembers nothing about her. When he recognizes Inés as the right woman, she accepts the role and an unlikely bond forms between them. While society imposes rules and treats difference as a threat, David resists being shaped and stands for imagination and freedom.

Filipe lived immersed in the innocence of a happy child and fell asleep surrounded by his parents' love. Now, as a young adult, he finds in the comfort of his memories the ghosts that steal his sleep. He finds himself haunted by the mourning of his father's death, and spends a night of longing and loneliness.

When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy -- the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in the garden, revealing that fate can have several twists and turns in one's life, depending on decisions that are made early on.