Real Ficção

This documentary shows a peculiar vision about theatre in general and O Bando in particular, on the bases of João Brites' directing the showcase of “ENSAIO SOBRE A CEGUEIRA” (essay on blindness), written by José Saramago.

Departing from extracts written by Fernando Pessoa, the characters walk through the city of Lisbon, having the streets and houses where the Poet lived as the background.

Documentary about the old people living in the highest floors of old buildings with no lifts, in Lisbon.

Fernando Lemo's world is fiercely stripped of any external logic, as Jorge de Sena once said. His artistic gesture blends with his own existence, where the poetic principle comes first. And with the light that insists to come through the half-closed door, the fear of life is vanquished in the battle fought with death. Thus, each word is born within another word and each image within another image. Out of how many knives is love made, the poet wonders?

Film adaptation of "The letter from the hunchback to the locksmith" by Fernando Pessoa's heteronym Maria José.

Founded in 1974, O Bando has known how to grow artistically. From an initial project, almost exclusively dedicated to a younger public, it developed the idea of a community theatre where different generation can meet. O Bando tries to find the anthropologic roots of our imaginary and tries to create poetic visual, at a risk accepted by the experimental contemporary art.

In 'Os Fotocines', an intimate portrait of the war is built with those who lived it. This documentary feature film aims to investigate who were those, that in the Portuguese colonial war, lived with the simultaneous responsibility of fighting, defending their own lives and also, of permanently recording that same collective mission, through cameras and shooting, as well as screening.

Fiction is never very far from reality. A young man, of Portuguese heritage, decides to do a PhD based on the documentary The Good People of Portugal, a work from 1980, also directed by Rui Simões. This opens the door to a parallel between the reality of the film we see and that of PREC, the moment of the studied documentary and the contemporary world, with the young Michel in between.

Woman seeks house to domesticate. Wants sensitive, versatile space, any age, with sense of humour. Offers availability of feelings. Has references. Schedule to be arranged.

50 years after its beginning, it's still a delicate and hermetic subject today, based on an exclusively male speech, as if veterans were war's only owners and victims. When a country is at war though, is there anybody left out? Warriors is a generation's war movie, told by those who were left behind to wait, those who chose to be there and those who ran to rescue the soldiers from the battle's front lines. A female insight on war.

Documentary about the life of the lyric singer Natália de Andrade.

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?

Documentary about the work and life of António Ole, one of the most notable contemporary artists from Angola.

Built in the New State to control the overseas students, the House of the Students of the Empire, situated in Lisbon with delegations in Coimbra and Porto, was fundamental in the fight for independence of the Portuguese colonies. Future leaders of the Liberation Movement, like Agostinho Neto and Amílcar Cabral, passed through this meeting point. The documentary The House restores the memories of the testimonies of the survivors of the House, fictionalizing in parallel excerpts of Pepetela´s “The Generations of Utopia”.

100,000 Portuguese young men left for war in the countrie's former colonies. In the same period, 100,000 fled the country so as to not be part of that war. What was the former's role in shaping Portugal?

This documentary follows a group of habitants from Cova da Moura neighborhood into a journey to Cape Verde, to celebrate St. John festivities. Recovering the rituals and rhythms of these festivities, the cape verdean people living in that neighborhood near Lisbon, try to recover their roots and transmit it to their children.

With this trip, an intergenerational sharing begins: with Portugal present as a backdrop, the director and a little daughter wander as if in question, trying to understand the country of today.

A documentary filmed during the shooting of Os Maias - (Alguns) episódios da vida romântica, the cinematic adaptation directed by João Botelho of the homonymous novel by Eça de Queirós. Following the cast in and out of scenes of the period film In-Between Scenes takes on its role as an extension to the history of the Maias family, exposing the lies of cinema, moving in between reality and fiction.

Documentary about "Madrugada" show: On the eve of 25th of April, 1999, took place at Praça do Comércio, in Lisbon, the performance of "Madrugada", a creation of the Theatre O Bando, commissioned by the Lisbon city council to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the "April Revolution".