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- The relationship between António and Ruth ends unexpectedly when Ruth decides to live with Pedro, António's best friend. António doesn't fight back and lets himself drown. From the woods come Violeta and Gaspar, two strange beings, a mixture of fairies, demons and guardian angels, who help António overcome his depression. With the thunders the two characters return to their domains. And life goes on.
- In Porto Santo, a small island next to Madeira the drought rages and Gonçalves, a local farmer, tries to overcome the catastrophe, with the help of Bastiana, whom he dearly loves. João Venâncio, who refuses to share the water of his field, tries to steal her heart. One day Gonçalves decides to fight for his beloved, beating violently Venâncio in front of an enthusiastic crowd.
- Portrait of Pedro Cabrita Reis, one of the most important artists of the young generation in Portugal as seen by one of the most famous woman director of her generation! Pedro Cabrita Reis has an important body that fills the screen with power. He creates spaces of huge dimensions where poetry rises. The documentary culminates with his participation in the last Venice Bienal with two gigantic light structures.
- A small island, a great history. Long before giving its name to the country, the Mozambique island had a fundamental role in the Indian Ocean during centuries. Anchor point for caravels, meeting point for pirates, it is a melting pot of races. It raises its walls in the middle of the sea. Its winding streets full of life reveal small palaces, churches and white houses. Its inhabitants are eccentric characters, proud of the island's past history. As we wander through the streets we meet an historian, a maritime archaeologist, a fisherman, the "doorman" of the island, a dancer, many spirits...
- The famous tragedy of Charlemagne and his nephew the Duque of Mantua, in conflict about a murder. The play, six hours long in its complete version, is performed each year in several villages of Saint Thomas Island, an ancient Portuguese colony. The characters, interpreted only by men wearing masks and sumptuous clothes in European style, are transmitted from father to son, and declaim an unalterable text. Several interviews with them lead us to understand the almost sacred function they are representing.
- Miguel is a successful economist until his father's death plunges him into a strange obscure world of fears, strange sounds and psychological isolation. He quits his job, drifts away from his wife and initiates a process of physical disintegration. He will reach the bottom before he starts seeing the light. As an echo to his journey, we follow, faraway in the countryside, the story of a crime and its redemption, the story of Antonio and Cecilia. From death to the miracle of life, here on earth.
- Badiaga follows rules of a classical tragedy. A three year old girl abandoned in a food market is sheltered.
- A portrait of the everyday life of a typical middle-class family in parallel with the fall of the "Estado Novo", the 48-year dictatorship led by Salazar. The daughters' conflicts and frustrations with their parents, their grandmother and their maid find an obvious echo in the country's collective events. The Carnation Revolution is about to explode.
- Fifty years have passed and the director meets Maria José again. She used to be a maid at his parents' house, when he was a child. From her he has heard the most fantastic stories. She was then eighteen and he was around six. The young woman became an elderly lady, a wrinkled great grandmother with the sea embedded in her eyes. She lives in a fishermen's village with white small houses perched at the edge of a cliff in Peniche, a neighborhood known as "Windows of the Sea". She now tells the story of her life in short sequences based on her experience and wisdom. Her story reflects itself in the personal and deformed narrative of the director. Seduced, the grandson and the great grandson all share a fabulous adventure. The games, the deep blue of the unpredictable Atlantic, under the splendor of the mists.
- In 1971, Christo and Jeanne-Claude thought of wrapping the Reichstag. After endless meetings with Government officials, they were finally given permission to wrap the Reichstag in 1994. For 7 days, in June 1995, a steel framework was constructed, then a metalized material was bound with 17, 060 yards of blue rope. The Reichstag, wrapped in this shiny material, seemed to move in the wind. Five million people visited this extraordinary project.
- A sensible approach of this misrecognized disease called Noma. This often deadly disease affects about 100,000 children a year in Africa, South America and South Asia. Shot in Niger, this documentary follows some of these children during their treatment, in a hospital of the ONG "Sentinelles" which struggles against Noma's development, with local teams. The children affected by Noma are rejected by the population, even their own parents. Alone with their pain, they show great courage and determination to get better: you never see them cry, they actually smile.
- Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, and Franco, the Spanish dictator, had parallel lives and supported each other, being the front men for two regimes which for decades coexisted in time and only disappeared after each other's death. Based on rigorous international archive researches, historian statements and testimonials of people who worked closely with the two dictators, this documentary follows the historical path of both Iberian neighbors. It was such a strong relationship that one would not live without the other.
- The imaginary world of a unique and refreshing artist from Mozambique who expresses herself with clay, a traditional African material. Reinata Sadimba was born in 1945. Her age hasn't erased her lively sparkle, as if she were still a cheerful little girl. The sculptures tell all sorts of stories drawn from real life and her country's folkloric tradition. It is also her way of exorcising ghosts and demons. Exhibitions in the USA, Japan and Germany have earned her worldwide fame. She is an eccentric character who loves to dance in men's clothes.
- In the colonial era the Grande Hotel in the city of Beira was the largest in Mozambique: 350 rooms, luxurious suites, Olympic-sized swimming pool... At present the building, which is in ruins, with no electricity or running water, is inhabited by 3500 people. Some have been living there for twenty years. In addition to the rooms, the foyers, corridors, service areas and basement of the hotel - here it's always night-time - also serve as residences. No trace of sadness of self pity in this luminous documentary.
- Shot between 1986 and 1988, Kafi's Story captures Nuba life at the moment before it was engulfed in the Sudanese civil war. Kafi, a young man from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, is one of the first to travel north to the capital city Khartoum in search of money. Only when he has money can he buy the cloth for a dress and so marry a second wife.
- Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.
- Dipri is a form of initiation practiced by the Abidji people. During a colorful trip that takes place every year, the population engage in a demonstration of religious mystic power fueled by a collective trance, while great masters suffer injuries with a knife they claim cure instantly. The director Roger M'Bala, one of the most important of his country, has decided to film the ancestral costumes of several tribes of Ivory Coast before they disappear completely. Being a member of this community he mingles with the crowd without being noticed, delivering the essence of the celebration.
- The Niambwa is a tribe that worships the God Mask at the centre of their society, culture and politics. The Mask is mediator in conflicts and his decision is final. His heavy figure dances accompanied by the whole population. Suddenly the panther-man appears crawling in his strange disguise, sowing the panic. Two opposite figures. The director Roger M'Bala, one of the most important of his country, has decided to film the ancestral costumes of several tribes of Ivory Coast before they disappear completely. Being a member of this community he mingles with the crowd without being noticed, delivering the essence of the celebration.
- After refusing the sexual advances of her village chief and her father's authority, a young woman runs away from home and goes to town. There she meets several members of her family and tries to start her life from scratch. She enrolls at a high school and makes new friends. However, she realizes that social relations in town also depend on sexual favors and that around her everyone has given in to that practice. When she loses the only man she loved, the girl returns to her village and in a fit of rage sets it on fire.
- A Luanda musseke under permanent construction shelters the kid poets. DJ Buda is one of them. In his computer, Buda brings to life mesmerizing electronic rhythms. They all want to try his machine oozing kuduro sound. Each boy tells his story in his own fashion. "I am more contained, so they call me Mellow". They want to listen to themselves. They dance. DJ Buda's parties are very successful, with food, drink and dance all night long. "Music Factory" is a hymn: it shows how Angolans are able to create, produce, sell and consume their own product, in this case music. A true cry of independence.
- They survive playing and singing their sorrows and happy memories. Young Mozambican musicians who play Jazz, Funky and Hip Hop join a group of elders who play Marrabenta, a musical style typical of Mozambique in the 1950's and 60's. This unexpected combination of different types of music works extraordinarily well, as we will see during their South African tour. This trip evokes the origins of each of the musicians.
- Filmed just before the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Dark portrait of a group of friends who used to be colleagues at the University in 1962. Ten years later, they have lost all their ideals. With Lisbon on the background they discuss politics, love, culture; each of them has reached a deadlock. The camera remains still while it registers the dissolution of their dreams.
- The story of a woman who searches through the country for her husband, a resistant, while the war for independence is raging. She finds him at last and saves his life. When peace finally arrives, they have to learn how to be together again and start living in a destroyed land.
- The sea, often treacherous, is the only source of living of the people of Nazaré. The film tells the story of António and his family, where no dreams are allowed. There is also the mourning of the woman in black wailing silently on the beach or waiting for their children lost in the sea.
- Each Malangatana's brushstroke is a new line of a long life story. Odd black and white sketching, full of little people in the middle of animals, or with such an explosive African color, that describes the painter memories. Starring at the drawings he says "one day I will explain all this". Throughout is living memories and these promises we are taken on a journey into the African world. We see the relation between the present and the past along with the spirits, how they are connected in an emotional way, how they integrate themselves, having to assimilate another culture in colonial time. Malangatana is one of the most important painters of the African Continent.
- Ten years after shooting Kafi's Story, British filmmaker Arthur Howes reentered the Sudan clandestinely to find out what had happened to the Nuba of Torogi. Everywhere, he encountered the face of jihad, or holy war. For example, a remarkable television program, Fields of Sacrifice, celebrates that week's casualties in the war against the Nuba and features family members thanking Allah for having taken their sons and brothers as martyrs.
- A look at the urban society of the seventies. The story of Marta a young and pretty girl, who leaves her husband to search for her true identity. She doesn't quite know what she wants, but at least she knows what she's escaping from. Soon she encounters financial difficulties and finds herself involved with shady characters, a situation that leads to a mysterious murder. The net closes around her.
- Two boys with different experiences and goals meet up in a sprawling African market. One is looking for a job, to get back what was stolen from him and return home. The other will do anything to avoid having to go back with his family. They become friends and together they reinvent the world.
- A sentimental comedy about toothpicks. A man makes and exchanges toothpicks for numerous products as he ignores money. He is called "The millionaire" and goes through the city, walking, meeting friends, Carlitos, the newspaper seller, and Celeste the lemon seller and living an innocent life, in contrast with the city, filled with traps.
- A critique of the romantic Portuguese society of the nineteenth century.
- Álvaro Cunhal (1913-2005) was at the head of the Portuguese Communist Party for more than half a century. Born in a bourgeois family, he maintains himself very close to the soviet leaders, from Stalin to Brejnev. In exile or in prison most of the time in his youth, he played a major role during the Portuguese revolution (1974/75). A talented writer and artist, he defended the hard communist line until his death. Rare archive footage reveals this enigmatic figure.
- Lost. Above all lost. In a land that is no longer theirs, running away from violence and confusion, they arrive in a small country with no room for them, a country they had heard about, but never known: Portugal. Twenty years after the end of the colonization, they have a new life in other countries and speak about their memories and the love for the African lands they dream to go back to. Exceptional archives footage. They were called "Os Retornados" (The ones that came back).
- Angola: thirty years of independence, three years of peace. Capital, Luanda, a city built for 600 thousand people where four million now live. Ten characters guide us through different ways of living and interpreting the city. People from all of the country's provinces meet at this crossroads. They are the life of the city, transforming it by inventing ways to make money and reinventing themselves.
- It was September in Lisbon. Elsa's young daughter leaves with her father, and Teresa, a friend's friend, comes to stay in her room. One night the two women go out and meet Raul, a vagrant lover of Elsa. A triangle takes form. They finish the night on a boat named Pandora but in the morning Raul sails away, alone. Elsa and Teresa are free to start a new life.
- In the middle of a drought, Petanqui - who is responsible for the distribution of food to the population - enjoys a good life, a nice house, lovers and an official car. His son returns from France with a Law degree, and although he does not approve of his father's lifestyle, he decides to defend him in court when he is accused of embezzlement. His defense becomes a strong attack on civil servants and members of government who take advantage of their situation. After all, his father is the lesser evil of a state of generalized corruption.
- Portugal from North to South in 1952, when human labour kept the country moving. Wine harvests, fishing, extraction and preparation of cork. Oporto, Fátima, Lisbon, Nazaré, Vila Viçosa, Évora. Folklore, pilgrimages, bullfighting, the singularity of the people. Images of rare beauty of a vanished past from a country by the sea.
- More than 25 years after I left, I felt the urge to go back and walk along this road that I know by heart, the road of my childhood.
- The director questions his parents about their private life, past and present. They belong to a generation marked by misery and oppression, where marriage was "until death do us part". Although they are seen frequently together, they answer openly but alone. It's a portrait of identity, origin, memory - a stunning black and white intimacy.
- A sorcerer (played by the director himself) controls all activities in a village. Manipulating the different parties, the sorcerer promises love, good health and riches in exchange for the most extravagant rewards. One day someone exposes him, and the sorcerer becomes the laughing stock of the whole village. Desperate, he throws himself of a cliff.
- Lives of circus performers in times of decay.
- How would you react if you couldn't see? In rehearsing the theatrical adaptation of "Blindness", by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the company "O Bando" made the experience. The actors lived 24 hours blindfolded in an abandoned hospital. How would you react if you could see again?
- A vivid tribute to the revolutionary master of the tango, from his friend and disciple Richard Galliano. An explicit, elaborate homage, perfect and enthusiastic. It's not only the memory of Piazzolla that vibrates in every breath of the bandoneon, but our own memories, our own emotions.
- The Tchiloli is performed by prominent men of certain quarters of the island. Originally from France, the Tchiloli was introduced in São Tomé in the XVIth century. The main roles are transmitted from generation to generation. Dressed in European clothes (mainly women costumes) and wearing masks, the male actors narrate a Renaissance text with music and dance, turning this spectacle into an extravagant cultural manifestation of African and European heritage.
- A beautiful, intelligent and flirtatious young girl, Yonta, is secretly in love with a friend of her parents, Vicente, a hero of the war of independence. Vicente is unaware of her passion as she is of the love of a young man who sends her anonymous love letters.
- In the rainy season the rivers rise and Chimanimani, one of the most beautiful regions in Mozambique, is cut off from the rest of the country. A natural reserve will be created. The main attraction is Mount Binga, the highest point in Mozambique. This reserve will benefit the local community. However, a bridge must be built. The entire village participates in the construction. It is a celebration of human labour!
- Ngando and Ndomé; are in love. Ngando wishes to marry Ndomé; but her family reminds him that the traditional dowry must be settled. Unfortunately, Ngando is poor and unable to fulfill the tradition. Ndomé; is pregnant and bears his child. According to the village tradition, she must take a husband, at least one who can afford to pay the dowry. The villagers decide that Ndomé; should marry Ngando's uncle, who has already three sterile wives. In despair, the young man kidnaps his daughter upon the day of the traditional feast. An African Romeo and Juliet story.
- Some fought on opposite sides in the war which ravaged Mozambique. Others were civilians, and for them, the demining work is an alternative to unemployment or a life of crime. Living all together in tents, they stay for long periods far from their families. Every day they risk their lives together. They are indeed a very special group of men.
- Portugal, 1739, the reign of King João V, who tries to keep a delicate balance between the power of the Church and the interests of the Court. António José da Silva, nicknamed "the Jew", a famous playwright admired both by the people and the aristocracy, is charged by the Inquisition with the crime of heresy and sentenced to die at the stake. His execution is organized as a demonstration of the triumphant power of the Church against any other force.
- This film illustrate through physical struggle, the clash between generations and civilizations.
- The gods have declared the drought of the country. There seems to be no hope. A holy man summoned by the king requires the sacrifice of a young woman to put an end to their anger. A young man in love decides to go in search of water to save the girl from a tragic end, but when he returns with good news it's too late: the genie had his satisfaction and Toula has already disappeared in the holy swamp.