João Pedro Vaz
2021
The Other Side
Luís Filipe Rocha
Filipe Duarte, Maria d'Aires
Ricardo is a transvestite. After a failed attempt of suicide, he has to come back to his roots and to relearn how to live with the inspiring help of his sister and, mostly, of his nephew Vasco, who has Down syndrome.
The Other Side
Cartas da Guerra
Ivo M. Ferreira
Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova
In 1971, António Lobo Antunes' life is brutally interrupted when he is drafted into the Portuguese Army to serve as a doctor in one of the worst zones of the Colonial War – the East of Angola. Away from everything dear he writes letters to his wife while he is immersed in an increasingly violent setting. While he moves between several military posts he falls in love for Africa and matures politically. At his side, an entire generation struggles and despairs for the return home. In the uncertainty of war events, only the letters can make him survive.
Letters from War
O lugar que ocupas
Pedro Marques
Lígia Roque, Crista Alfaiate
We stare at mirrors as if 'image' was a weapon of self-defense. At night, I hide in actors' dressing rooms for a working class experience. By day, I face an old theatre being razed to the ground, making way for a parking lot. Graffitis have curtains, the nose cap of an umbrella arises from a mount of sand. Oh, Happy Days! No need to stage anything! The bulldozer is a dinosaur whose teeth and gracious neck swings by a EU flag. In the boxes, we await the audience. Sometimes, nobody comes. Lost in a symbolic show of reality, I can only watch the world's end because all the endangered species perform and a reflecting labyrinth of life stories breaks through the glass of the Economic Eating Machine. Even when the sky is falling, theatre will always happen. So, choose the right place.
The Room You Take
Blood Curse
Frederico Serra, Tiago Guedes
Adriano Luz, Manuela Couto
An urban family inherits an old country house located in a small village. Upon their arrival they try to adapt to the new lifestyle, but they soon learn that the village is overshadowed by superstition and mysterious folklore. As they are plagued by strange events, they learn more about the history of their family, and slowly begin to believe by inheriting the house, they also inherited a curse.
Blood Curse
Surdina
Rodrigo Areias
António Durães, Ângela Marques
In a rural landscape, that resembles an old Portugal, an elderly man find out that his wife, whom he believed to be dead, was seen shopping in town. Spiteful and sad, he wants to hide from everyone, but his friends insist that he uses this situation to become stronger and try to get married again.
Surdine
Dot.com
Luís Galvão Teles
João Tempera, María Adánez
A small village in Portugal, Águas-Altas, is being sued by a Spanish multinational corporation because the village hosts a website that uses the same name as an international brand of mineral water. A judicial battle for website begins, that quickly turned in to a media circus. Thus the residents of this small village, who are not even sure what the internet is, are forced defend their website and their villages honour.
DotCom
Os Maias: Cenas da Vida Romântica
João Botelho
Graciano Dias, Maria Flor
The tragedy and comedy in Carlos' life begins, grows and ends like the tragedy and comedy of Portugal. In the company of his close friend, João da Ega, allegedly a brilliant writer, Carlos, with his idle existence as an aristocratic doctor, spends his time to enjoying friends and lovers. Until he falls in love. She is a new character in this revolutionary novel. It's a vertiginous passion that goes beyond that past gloominess to reach a new and darker abyss, incest.
The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family
Se Eu Fosse Ladrão... Roubava
Paulo Rocha
Luís Miguel Cintra, Chandra Malatitch
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.
If I Were a Thief... I'd Steal
A Imitação
Saguenail
Ivo Alexandre, Frederico Amaral
An act of passion, filmed in a church turned into a bar, on Easter 2003, and starring as many actors as the days of the year… Taking the sacred painting as a reference, the film questions the human condition: letting oneself die like Christ or betray scientifically like Peter?
A Imitação
Colo
Teresa Villaverde
João Pedro Vaz, Alice Albergaria Borges
Struggling against the crisis in Portugal, a mother doubles up jobs to pay the bills since her husband is unemployed. Their teenage daughter tries to keep living everyday life even if the money is running short, which makes everything uneasy. Escaping from their common reality, they slowly become strangers to one another, as the tension grows in silence and in guilt.
Colo
