Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.
In a unique approach to what amounts to four pseudo-morality plays, director Monique Rutler has a street entertainer with hand puppets summarize the characters and idea of each story. The first sketch is about a young man who shines shoes for a living, and tries to keep up a relationship with two women while convincing each she is his only true love. The next story is about a man who beats up his wife when he is drunk, and sells furs for a living. One day, as she is riding in the back of his truck with the furs, he hits a bad patch and she and some furs fall out. The question is, will the woman be enterprising and leave the jerk - or not? The third tale concerns a woman looking into how much control a prostitute has over her clients, and to really find out, she becomes a prostitute herself for awhile - leading to some quite unexpected situations. The last segment handles the uglier side of the life styles of the rich and famous.
Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.
1970. To Fronteira's village arrives a new chief to the Fiscal Guard. With unshakable convictions about the application of the Law, he quickly comes into confrontation with the population, which survives with the practice of smuggling. But a passionate conflict calls into question all your values and your sense of duty, forcing him to make an unexpected and irreversible decision.
In 1970, a man is tortured and murdered by the regime's secret police. Now nearly 40 years later, his friend, who had also been tortured, recognizes the man he deems responsible for the murder of his friend. Along with three old friends and the victim's daughter, they kidnap the man and take him to an isolated house. Once there, the concepts of justice and revenge begin to mix dangerously in a private trial with irreversible consequences.
A baby is kidnapped in a Brazilian airport. Years later, the mother lives in Lisbon and works in a strip-tease bar so she can survive. When she is fired, she joins a gang of bank robbers...
The life of a young man, son of an English officer who lets himself become a prisoner of love resulting in fatalism and disgrace.
In Brazzaville, in 1944, Alex Emmerich was sentenced to wander the seas by Hélène Latray, the wife of Félix Beauvois, the man Alex loved. In 1962, exiled on Hatray cruises and feeling the coming death, Alex decides to compose for his love a testament: the photographic report of his agony.
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.
Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.
An aristocratic Sicilian family living in the 1950s. Count Villafratti has sex one night with his nymphomaniac daughter because he thinks she is his wife.
The journey of 11 women while they go on a pilgrimage from Bragança to Fatima.
The story of a child who faces the emptiness that surrounds the figure of his parents, disappeared in Africa.
Cape Verde, 1964. At the feet of a mighty volcano, the traditional Cape Verdean society is undergoing a steady change. The old land-owning aristocracy is disintegrating. A class of "mulattos" begins to emerge, with a trade-based financial power that threatens the landlords. A new identity arises, a mix of old and new, of African and Portuguese culture, sensual and dynamic. The songs of Cesária Évora follow this inevitable transformation. From the novel by Henrique Teixeira de Sousa.
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.
Spino, a pathologist, receives an unidentified body which looks familiar to him... himself, 30 years younger.
Catarina Menezes is a bisexual TV reporter who decides to have a child on her own and chooses Spanish humanitarian doctor Rafael to father the child, setting up an elaborate charade to lure him into her bed. When Catarina reveals her pregnancy, though, her current live-in girlfriend doesn't take to it kindly and promises to make Catarina's life hell; to make matters worse, Rafael finds out her true identity and comes to Lisbon to see her. And Catarina's sole refuge is in the arms of fellow journalist Francisco, her professional relationship slowly becoming a romantic one.
Two simple, unassuming, apolitical men have their lives changed forever when they find themselves hunted by agents of the ruling dictatorship.
Redheaded twins Armando and Beatriz always dreamed of being firefighters but during a rainy, uneventful winter they find themselves spending less time putting out infernos than they do helping neighbors who’ve locked themselves out of their apartments. This is how Armando meets a pretty young woman with whom he begins a tentative courtship. But soon a rift grows between the siblings and, spurred by Armando’s exaggerated stories about his nascent relationship, Beatriz begins experiencing aural hallucinations that can only be remedied through music and, finally, the love of a stranger. Pinto made this impassioned fairy tale as part of a series of films about the four elements. - FilmLinc
In 1977, the Voyager probe leaves for the galaxy with a message in Spanish recorded in the RNE (Spanish National Radio Studio). Almost 50 years later and sick with Alzheimer's, Carmen is facing being transferred from her home in her town to a residence in the city.
A young man from a high-bourgeois family, Henrique receives mysterious phone calls from a woman at the barracks where he is serving in the military, which attracts him to meetings without consequences.
A fanciful biopic of legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini as a very young man.
Manoel is an aging film director who travels with the film crew through Portugal in search of the origins of Afonso, a famous French actor whose father emigrated from Portugal to France and in process remembers his own youth.
Once the boss started deducting a third of the workers' wages on the pretext that it was necessary to purchase new machines in order to compete, a group of workers went on strike, occupied the company, but were expelled from their workplace by the police. Out on the street, the workers think about the best way to make their comrades and the general population aware of the seriousness of their situation. They then decide, by mutual agreement, following the humorous tradition of cegadas and popular theater, to improvise a satirical performance in which they denounce some typical examples of capitalist exploitation. From the bandstand, which serves as their rehearsal stage, to the final procession, which unexpectedly takes on a different tone, the workers learn and teach us how scathing and uncompromising criticism of capitalist institutions can be transformed into a celebration of struggle, joy, and unity.
Ana, a former member of the Basque terrorist group ETA who lives in a small village near the Portuguese border working as a veterinarian and sharing her days with her partner Darío and their daughter Amalia, meets José, an attractive man who participated in the dirty anti-terrorist war against ETA criminals who took refuge in France.
Dona Elvira promises to get a job from José through the typical Portuguese wedge. In parallel, they are bizarre aspects and eccentric figures of the city life, including the tragedy of the actress Maria Alves.
Caio is 40 years old and lives in the Rio de Janeiro's countryside, where he owns a scrap-metal yard. On Christmas' Eve, he goes to the capital to visit his family and friends. Finally he will be able to meet a man he has not seen for a long time: himself.
The story of Brazilian Antônio José da Silva, a jewish poet, playwright and lawyer living in the 18th Century Lisbon, who managed to avoid Inquisition by converting himself to Catholicism, after being tortured. But his fierce criticism of Portugal's élite led him to persecution and torture, becoming kind of a scapegoat.
Mozambique, 1969. What was meant to be a peaceful Christmas Eve ends up badly as a group of soldiers brings home a prisoner that will be murdered. Simultaneously, the Capitan's wife arrives in surprise, bringing along a Priest, who is supposed to celebrate the mass.
Things are going well to a married couple, they have two sons, and things are going well in their respective jobs, Until the husband betrays her wife with another woman, and their son becomes seriously hill.
The life of a young man, son of an English officer who lets himself become a prisoner of love resulting in fatalism and disgrace.
Shares a lead actor · Same director
An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.
Viewers also picked
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
Viewers also picked
Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.
Viewers also picked
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
Viewers also picked
Johnny Kovak joins the Teamsters trade-union in a local chapter in the 1930s and works his way up in the organization. As he climbs higher and higher his methods become more ruthless and finally senator Madison starts a campaign to find the truth about the alleged connections with the Mob.
Viewers also picked
A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.
Viewers also picked
Based on the writer/director's childhood, FARMING tells the story of a young Nigerian boy, 'farmed out' by his parents to a white British family in the hope of a better future. Instead, he becomes the feared leader of a white skinhead gang.
Viewers also picked
While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.
Viewers also picked
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Viewers also picked