Magic Mirror

A police detective in a South American country is dedicated to hunting down a revolutionary guerilla leader.

The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England.

The comfortable daily routines of aging Parisian actor Gilbert Valence, 76, are suddenly shaken when he learns that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car crash. Having to take care of his now-orphaned grandson, he struggles to go on with his lifelong acting career like he's used to. But the roles he is offered -- a flashy TV show and a hectic last-minute replacement in an English-language film of Joyce's Ulysses -- finally convince him that it's time to retire.

A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.

A philosophy-obsessed serial rapist stalks a university campus in broad daylight.

38 years after the events in the Luis Buñuel classic Belle de Jour, Henri Husson thinks he sees Séverine one night at a concert. He follows her and makes her face her past and then takes a slow revenge on her.

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

In a family-run hotel near the northern coast of Portugal, several women from the same family, spanning different generations, live together. Their relationship, poisoned by bitterness, struggles to survive in the decaying hotel. The unexpected arrival of a granddaughter in this claustrophobic space provokes turmoil and rekindles latent hatreds and accumulated resentments.

The battle of the sexes? The forces of despair and seduction? On S. Miguel in the Azores, Rogério, a young man with old money, and his enigmatic wife Leonor host a garden party at their villa. The intriguing guests are an older unmarried couple, the philosophical and observant Irene, and Michel, a roué. While Rogério and Irene talk, Michel and Leonor go down to the sea. The conversations upset Rogério and capture Leonor's imagination. Five years later, the four dine at the villa. Michel and Leonor again leave the other two. Intentions and undercurrents are subtle. One of the four proves strong, one weak, and two must choose. Wind and rain bring down the curtain on both acts.

Despite his age and general weariness, Gebo keeps on working as an accountant to provide for his family. He lives with his wife, Doroteia, and his daughter-in-law, Sofia, but it is the absence of João, son and husband, that worries them.Gebo seems to be hiding something, especially to Doroteia, who is anxiously waiting to see her son again. Sofia is also waiting for her husband to come home, and yet she fears him. All of a sudden, João arrives and everything changes.

Having lost her place among the social elite, a widow remarries and starts a family.

The recollections of a Portuguese teacher in the present will make us follow his father, Manuel, former fighter in our colonial war and constantly tormented with those memories. He'll walk us through the depths of the physical sites that haunt him - from training barracks to the lakes and gardens of his youth and infatuation - and also to his memory's gulf - war and passion combined, entangled, in a battle that questions or howls immemorial existential doubts.

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.

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.

Episodes from throughout the entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a conscripted student of history recounts them to his fellow soldiers while they march through an African colony in revolt during 1973.

A true story of a doctor and his wife who went on a journey in order to prove that discoverer Christopher Columbus was in fact Portuguese. Inspired by the book "Cristóvão Colon Era Português".

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.

Manoel de Oliveira directs José Régio's historical epic of religious and political power struggles. King Sebastião plans to make Portugal the world's Fifth Empire.

A young girl, Benilde, so protected by her religious family that she seemingly knows nothing about procreation, insists that her mysterious pregnancy is a miracle; however, her distressed bourgeois family decides that Benilde has lost her mind.

Manoel de Oliveira's autobiographical documentary about returning to his hometown.

The life of a young man, son of an English officer who lets himself become a prisoner of love resulting in fatalism and disgrace.

An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.

A young French actress in Lisbon to shoot a movie is intrigued by a nun she sees kneeling in the chapel where she is filming.

Arriving in a hotel in the city of Faro, a couple learns there are no available tables left. When another couple agrees to share a table, they spark a conversation on the city’s history, unfolding the tales of King Afonso III, who betrays his wife, and of a Moorish woman, who betrays her father.

This odd film is a major representative of an even odder film genre: direct-to-celluloid opera. It was commissioned by the Portuguese master of style, director Manoel de Oliveira from composer João Paes. Musically, it ranges from 19th-century romanticism to popular, modernist and even "post-modernist" styles. In the initially tame story, a host-narrator tells the story of a wedding between the two lovebirds: Viscount d'Aveleda and the beautiful Marguerite. However, what happens in the bridal chamber is incredibly bizarre. The events after that are even stranger, and the wedding guests and family indulge in cannibalism, among other perversions.

The Life of Mirrors is one of the sections of the exhibition Luis Miguel Cintra - Small Theatre of the World. A commission by Serralves Foundation to Regina Guimarães and Saguenail, and constructed after an unpublished interview with Luis Miguel Cintra, this film is the result of a long and painstaking exercise of selecting and editing excerpts from films by Manoel de Oliveira in which Cintra participates as an actor. In this way, The Life of Mirrors is a reflective, retrospective essay film, which opens the Carte Blanche, thus establishing a gateway to Luis Miguel Cintra's cinematographic and cinephile career.