Life Lasts Two Days 2022

Rómulo's quiet routine in Rio de Janeiro changes overnight when an accident starts a wave of absurd events. Far from there, Orlando, his twin brother and rare works dealer tries to buy the book of a Brazilian student with financial problems. The twins' lives will be on a collision course with the arrival of a mysterious manuscript.

The Kegelstatt Trio 2022

Paul and Adèle were once lovers and separated but are still good friends, one year after everything seems to take them away from each other. The key of E-flat may be the key of true friendship, but it is Mozart that pushes them apart...

Danses Macabres, Skeletons, and Other Fantasies 2019

Two film directors and a writer are in Portugal for an expedition through various images, moments from the history of Western allegorical representation. The writer is Jean-Louis Schefer, and this tale encapsulates his life’s mission.

The Portuguese Woman 2019

North of Italy, the von Kettens dispute the forces of the Episcopate of Trent. Herr Ketten seeks marriage in a distant country, Portugal. After their honeymoon journey back home, Ketten leaves again for the war. Eleven years elapsed… Rumours are running about the presence of that 'foreigner' in the castle. Some say she's a heretic. Until one day, the Bishop of Trento ends up dying and, with the signature of peace, falls the background of von Ketten's life. Will the Portuguese win, where death seems to be moving in?

Principiantes 2018

Correspondences 2016

Jorge de Sena was forced to leave his country. First he moved to Brazil, and later to the USA. He never returned to Portugal. During his 20-year-long exile, he kept an epistolary correspondence with Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. These letters are a testimony of the profound friendship between the two poets, letters of longing and of desire to “fill years of distance with hours of conversation”. Through excerpts and verses, a dialog is established, revealing their divergent opinions but mostly their strong bond, and their efforts to preserve it until their last breaths.

What Now? Remind Me 2014

Joaquim Pinto has been living with HIV and VHC for almost twenty years. “What now? Remind Me” is the notebook of a year of clinical studies with toxic, mind altering drugs as yet unapproved. An open and eclectic reflection on time and memory, on epidemics and globalization, on survival beyond all expectations, on dissent and absolute love. In a to-and-fro between present and past memories, the film is also a tribute to friends departed and those who remain.

A Woman's Revenge 2012

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.

A Portuguese Film 2011

A documentary about the world of portuguese cinema, with interviews with some critics and directors.

The Invisible Collection 2009

A story about art and educated men, and how their art and culture reveal themselves useless in the face of the harsh realities of the 20th century life.

The 15th Stone 2007

Joáo Bénard da Costa, director of the Portuguese National Film Archives [deceased in 2009], interviews the dean of contemporaneous film directors [96-years-old then]. Two humanists of different philosophical backgrounds, both with their long, entire lives dedicated to culture in general (music, painting, literature) and to film in particular, discuss freely, sometimes haltingly, the director's power as a creator or a magician, the philosophy beyond particular scenes in classic movies, film technique, the importance of color, sound and music to films, art versus entertainment, and much more. Their talk takes place in a museum room, seating in front of "The Annunciation" (a 1510 oil painting by João Vaz, a Portuguese artist), which eventually leads to a discussion of 'Leonardo da Vinci', and the relationship between a trend-setter master and his disciples.

The Conquest of Faro 2005

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.

Altar 2003

In this lyrical elegy lamenting the death of Madeleine, her husband, a theater actor, relives his very first memories of her.

Fragile as the World 2001

An impossible love. Two young people who love each other. Vera and João can’t find in this life the space, time, or identity to resolve their love story.

The Sound of the Shaking Earth 1990

Freely based on Gide ('Paludes') and Hawthorne ('Wakefield'), this is a film about a writer who never wrote anything and who blows at nightfall the breath of frost. The poem by Carlos Queiroz to which the above sentences belong is not cited in 'O som da Terra a Tremer', but the atmosphere is that, between written letters never received. Fiction within fiction, stories within stories, like those Chinese boxes in which there is always one inside another. Or the two margins of the same river, always being lateral.

The Rose King 1986

A mentally unstable woman and her son move to a sprawling mansion in Portugal to grow roses.

Francisca 1981

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

O Construtor de Anjos 1978

Gothic film in a monastery, where sensual monks murder the children they receive, with images of fantastic, painted from the author own painting and also from the Hammer films and the Saxon plastic tradition of romanticism.