The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family

The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family 2014

5.90

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.

2014

The Last Party

The Last Party 2023

6.50

'The Last Party' is a young romantic comedy that follows a group of four friends at their high school graduation party. Each protagonist with their love dilemma to solve throughout the night, all connected by the issues of this generation. It's their last night as teenagers. The last night with friends before being separated by different colleges. The last night before the rest of their lives.

2023

Blackpot

Blackpot 2023

8.00

A reorganization within a crime syndicate.

2023

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis 2020

5.20

Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest writers in Portuguese, created an immense parallel world and several heteronyms so as to endure the loneliness of genius. José Saramago, 1998 Nobel Laureate in Literature, has a heteronym, Ricardo Reis, return to Portugal after a 16-year exile in Brazil. 1936 is a perilous year with Mussolini’s fascism, Hitler’s Nazism, Spain’s Civil War and Salazar’s New State in Portugal. And Fernando Pessoa meets his creation, Reis. Two women, Lídia and Marcenda, are Reis’ carnal and impossible passions. “Life and Death as one” allows for literature and cinema.

2020

Para Que Este Mundo Não Acabe!

Para Que Este Mundo Não Acabe! 2009

1

"Come and see this world end!" - wrote the the priest António Fontes, father of folk medicine and "burning witches" in Vilar de Perdizes, a desperate plea in his precious monograph of the Barroso region. And I (João Botelho) went. Then I saw the people and the land. Haunting on discovery. Heart sank. "God is good but the devil is not so bad!" - We learned from this Community habits and that is great, tough and generous. And I also learned that no fairer place for a demand of life and even the elusive happiness there, I assure you, it is always possible.

2009

Sea

Sea 2018

6.13

Francisca, a beautiful 50-year-old widow, prepared a peaceful future for herself. In an unexpected outburst, she grabs an opportunity for change and embarks on a sailboat called ‘Hovering Over the Water’.

2018

Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira and Me

Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira and Me 2016

6.40

“An old photograph taken 36 years ago. His hand rests on my shoulder. A blessing, a gift. Then a history of over four decades of friendship, admiration and apprenticeship. A journey into Oliveira’s cinema, his method, his way of filming and his extraordinary cinematic inventions. He lived for over a century, over a century of cinema, cinema in its entirety. For him, and for me too now, documentary and fiction films go hand in hand; it is all about cinema. So I had the audacity to film a magnificent story that Manoel loved but never filmed, one that he left behind as if his hand and eyes were close to God, or among the gods, and he was steering me.” - João Botelho

2016

Disquiet

Disquiet 2010

5.70

Lisbon, today. In a room of a house at Douradores Street, a man invents dreams and theorizes about them. The essence of the dreams itself becomes physical, palpable, visible. The text itself materializes in its musicality. And, in front of our eyes, this music can be felt with the ears, brain and heart. It spreads itself in the street where the man lives, in the city that he loves above all and over the entire world.

2010

Young Mr. Cunhal

Young Mr. Cunhal 2022

1

The revolutionary Álvaro Cunhal, symbol of Portuguese communism and political giant of the 20th century. He is nothing less than a larger-than-life figure, now examined by João Botelho’s camera, in a detective-minded film, in which the early years of the life of the historic leader of the Portuguese Communist Party are explored. In between, excerpts from his own books are staged for the spectator.

2022

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage 2017

5.40

Adventurer, pilgrim, penitent but above all outstanding writer, Fernão Mendes Pinto left us an unparalleled romance, the living and human palpitation of one of the greatest historical adventures of man.

2017

Hands in the Fire

Hands in the Fire 2024

1.00

The young film student Maria do Mar is working on a documentary about the old manor houses along the Douro River. It is the final project in her thesis on “Reality in Cinema”. Maria has an unlimited confidence in what is visible. Her candour and her naivety allow her to see the bright side of life – such as the beauty of the landscape and the authenticity of the place, or what’s left of it. But when Maria enters the final manor house on her list, she soon realises that something is going on in this house that is not as innocent as it first seemed. The manor is truly a house of horrors.

2024

Oh Lisboa, Meu Lar

Oh Lisboa, Meu Lar 2010

1

A journey inside the tram crossing the city of Lisbon while listening to fragments of Fernando Pessoa's poetry.

2010

Fantasmas do Império

Fantasmas do Império 2020

1

Ariel de Bigault's work has been connected to the routes of the Lusophone World. In Fantasmas do Império we are guided by the saotomean actor Angelo Torres through some works of the Portuguese cinema that explored its colonial past. Some directors as Fernando Matos Silva, João Botelho or Margarida Cardoso help to understand imperialism, colonialism, and propaganda seen through the "family album" which is the Portuguese cinematic collective imaginary.

2020

Um Filme em Forma de Assim

Um Filme em Forma de Assim 2022

4.30

Organized like a dream, structured like a musical and with texts, both spoken and sung, that lead us to unexpected, chaotic and exciting situations, which try to grasp part of what the unattainable Alexandre O'Neill left us.

2022

A Que Chamas Pensar?

A Que Chamas Pensar? 2017

1

The plan of issues, since 1962, an alive and continuous legacy of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

2017