1907. Afonso, a doctor, arrives at Principe Island to cure servants from a cocoa plantation “infected” with Banzo, nostalgia of the slaves, who are dying from starvation and suicide. The group is confined to the forest, where Afonso decides to heal them by trying to understand what is affecting their soul. Will he manage to save them?
In 1917 Burma (now Myanmar), a British diplomat is set to marry his fiancée, but after a sudden panic, escapes to Singapore, sending her on what evolves into a chase across Asia.
Crista, Carloto and João are building an airy greenhouse for butterflies in the garden. The three of them share household routines, day after day… And they are not the only ones.
Ze, a 17-year-old, studies hard at school to succeed in the cold, callous society of modern Mongolia. When Ze encounters Maralaa, his senses are awakened and another reality seems possible.
At an old manor house in northern Portugal, Ana helps her friend, Emília, the elderly housekeeper who is determined to continue to keep the unoccupied house in order for the owners who are never there. As the seasons turn, Mónica, Ana's daughter, challenges her mother's choices and the three generations of women search to understand where they belong in a world that is rapidly fading, where the cycle of life is renovated only through inevitable endings.
By the director: "Ar.Co embodies each person’s geography, it escapes normalisation. Each individual’s experience is his own. This film is my experience, our experience. Pieced together from the school’s archive, from recordings of classes by Manuel Castro Caldas and from conversations at home."
This film tries to make a silent record of the arrival of an economy of scale, its flows, and its effects upon the transformation of an island’s physical and human landscape.
Miguel —alias Tibars, alias “Djon África,” born and raised in Portugal— is a kindhearted Rastafarian who loves women and lives a carefree life. Until one day a stranger tells him he's the spitting image of his father, “a player and a crook.” His father, whom he never even knew! This intriguing discovery makes him change tack. Particularly when his grandmother, who always took care of him, finally tells him how his father was in prison; how sad Miguel was as a toddler when he couldn't see him; how his father was banished to Cape Verde. Miguel goes there to visit him. Who is this man?
Ubu, instigated by his wife, murders King Venceslau and usurps the throne of Poland. Intoxicated by power, this grotesque and coward character conducts his reign in an absurd and cruel way, leading his kingdom to ruin. A cinematographic adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s play, a political satire that, cyclically, turns to the reality of world politics.
'Bué Sabi' (pronounced "bweh sabi") portrays the unlikely friendship of three female characters: a troubled girl of Gypsy descent who lives in one of Lisbon's toughest neighbourhoods, her best friend from Cape Verde and a young middle-class girl. Apart from their differences, they are good friends. Until one fateful night in Lisbon...
“Once upon a time, before people came along, all the creatures were free and able to be with one another”, narrates the voiceover. “All the animals danced together and were immeasurably happy. There was only one who wasn’t invited to the celebration – the frog. In his rage about the injustice, he committed suicide.” Something Romani and frogs have in common is that they will never be unseen, or stay unnoticed. In her film, young director Leonor Teles weaves the life circumstance of Romani in Portugal today with the recollections of a yesterday. Anything but a passive observer, Teles consciously decides to participate and take up position. As a third pillar, she establishes an active applied performance art that becomes integrated in the cinematic narrative. Thereby transforming “once upon a time” into “there is”. “Afterwards, nothing will be as it was and the melody of life will have changed”, explains a voice off-camera. Golden Bear for Best Short Film 2016
October 2019, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (UK). Three months before Brexit. Hundreds of Portuguese migrant workers pour into town, seeking work at the local turkey factories. Tânia (The Mother of the Portuguese), a former worker in these poultry plants, is now married to an English hotel owner. She is the perfect facilitator for the Portuguese workers, but dreams of becoming a British citizen and leaving this dirty business behind by transforming her husband’s derelict hotels into refurbished senior citizens homes.
Ashore portrays the life of a singular fisherman in an ancient riverfront community near Lisbon. Divided between the quiet solitude of the river and the family ties that wash him ashore, the film follows Albertino Lobo, as nature renews itself with each season cycle.
Gonçalo and his friends set off on a mission to his deceased grandfather’s house, in the north of Portugal. There, the memories of the past open up new perspectives into the future.
Mena lives alone with her daughter Clara. Today is Clara’s seventh birthday. Despite her limited financial resources, Mena still manages to organise a birthday party. But after a phone call from her mother, she becomes distraught and anxious.
School is over and there's a hustle in the air. In Porto, tourists fill up the streets and cafés. The old and decadent are now the highlights of the city’s gentrification. Vicente moves around town on his bike and watches the urban changes happening day to day. The town is no longer the same, the world is changing and so is he. Among his family and friends, Vicente lives with anticipation the first days of summer and the beginning of a new life.
After another failed attempt to get pregnant, a young couple begins to diverge in their desires. Pandemics, climate change and life’s uncertainties loom large. What does it mean to bring a child into an ever-more-complicated world? The cycles of nature and the seasons remain constant either way.
Muanza, a woman born in the Kingdom of Kongo in the early nineteenth century and trafficked to Brazil, awakens to find herself in the present, roaming the streets of Rio’s rapidly changing port region, known as ‘Pequena Africa’, or Little Africa.
Her name is El - a name that sounds like a letter and makes the young androgynous woman a kind of representative of her generation. A generation that is overwhelmed by all the possibilities of the world, globalization and the digital stream. Lisbon is a promise of freedom, independence and an intense life. But the question of meaning brings doubt into everyday life: what if I were happier with someone else or called another place home? When home no longer feels like home, the search becomes routine. When El meets Kay after a break-up, in the midst of her search, their story together begins. Time, space and emotions implode in "Baan", blurring Lisbon with Bangkok, past with present.
Minas de São Domingos is a small village built on a mine in the Alentejo region of Portugal. Today, the mine, which in other times kept its neighbours in employment, is no longer operating. It is difficult to imagine a future for this slightly forgotten land, criss-crossed by ruins that bear witness to a happier era, and virtually abandoned by inhabitants forced to leave to find work elsewhere. It’s summer, children play in the street, tourists camp next to the river, adults burst into traditional song in the ruins of the mine. Here, everything happens as a community, as if being together was the only possible answer to the question formulated by the film’s title.
