Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?

Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? 2003

7.10

Undaunted by a commission to make a film about his mentors and aesthetic exemplars, the filmmaking team of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Costa records with great sensitivity and insight the exacting process by which the two re-edit their film Sicilia!, discussing and arguing over each cut and its effect. Incorporating comments about the influence of figures as diverse as Chaplin and Eisenstein, about the ethical and aesthetic implications of film technique and such matters as rhythm, sound mixing, and acting. The film becomes a tour de force, immersing us in the mysteries of cinema as practiced by some of its greatest creators. Costa calls the film both his first comedy and his first love story.

2003

Fragile as the World

Fragile as the World 2001

7.60

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.

2001

How to Draw a Perfect Circle

How to Draw a Perfect Circle 2009

5.60

Guilherme and Sofia, brother and sister, grow up sharing experiences and slowly discovering their sexuality. The thing that Sofia doesn't know is how far Guilherme will go to keep her inside his own perverse, dark and perfect circle.

2009

The Forest

The Forest 2002

5.90

Young man, of Portuguese nobility ascendancy, starts working in a rubber plantation in the Amazon, in 1912, and falls in love with pretty Yayá, a married woman.

2002

The Fatalist

The Fatalist 2005

3.60

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese countryside to an unspecified destination, the traveling pair embark on a series of highly philosophical discussions. Flowing with tales of his life in the military and previous sexual escapades, Tiago trades a series of tales with his rapt passenger, including the story of a vengeful spurned lover who plots revenge on the nobleman who rejected her by transforming a prostitute into a society lady and convincing him to marry the tainted bride.

2005

Jaime

Jaime 1999

7.00

A woman takes her young son, leaves her husband and moves in with her lover. The boy, desperate to get his parents back together, becomes convinced that if only he can get his father's stolen motorcycle back everything will be fine again, so he sets out to get enough money to buy his father a new one.

1999

Low-Flying Aircraft

Low-Flying Aircraft 2002

5.40

Based on a the short story "Low Flying Aircraft" by J.G. Ballard and set in a near future where humans are dying breed. Judite and André flee to a semi-abandoned apartment complex to protect their mutant child from certain death.

2002

Who Are You?

Who Are You? 2001

5.00

A historical classic drama in three acts, retold after an original prologue about dreams and nightmares of the thirteen-year-old noble heroine, Maria de Noronha.

2001

Bad

Bad 2000

5.00

Concerns an Irish woman, Cathy (Pauline Cadell), who dearly loves her Portuguese lawyer husband, Pedro (Rui Morisson); however, unbeknownst to her, he engages in one tryst after another. Cathy soon finds herself trying to help a young delinquent get off heroin, while the youth's desperate mother joins a weird religious cult. In other segments, an elderly man is nearly driven mad with grief at the loss of his granddaughter in a train station, while a down-and-out jeweler ushers the young girl to a hotel room.

2000

Maria e as Outras

Maria e as Outras 2004

3.00

Maria, an executive from Oporto, lives in the search of the right man for her. On the other hand, her two friends, Joana, a doctor that has fallen in love to a co-worker, and Isilda, a hairdresser with an open hart and an adventurous spirit, seem to be happy with their lives. One day though, everything changes. Maria is forced to take care of her father, victim of a brain accident. During these days of turbulence, Maria thinks she has found the perfect man, a mysterious Star, an habitué of chat channels on the Internet. The three friends find out that cense of humour can be the key for a happy life. Internet, romance, a bachelor party; marriage, dates and some adventures are Loving Maria. A film where love shows himself with the most different looks. Love arrives when you don't expect it and goes away when you think it is safe. It can even appear in the light of a mobile computer.

2004

O Delfim

O Delfim 2002

6.30

A wealthy landowner, "The Dauphin," enjoys a decadent life of hunting, drinking, and womanizing. He oversees his estate, the Laguna, with his barren wife, his one-armed manservant, and his treasured guard dog. When a sportsman (the film’s narrator) comes to the estate for his annual duck-hunting excursion, he discovers the body of the landowner’s wife floating in the lagoon and the manservant dead on his master’s bed. The Dauphin and his dog are nowhere to be found except for the mysterious barking sounds heard over the lagoon.

2002

Belle Toujours

Belle Toujours 2006

6.10

38 years after the events in the Luis Buñuel classic Belle du jour, Henri Husson thinks he sees Séverine one night at a concert. He follows her and makes her face her past and then takes a slow revenge on her.

2006

Inferno

Inferno 1999

6.30

Ten men,ten brothers in arms who fought together in the Portuguese Colony of Angola during the colonial war,gather together every year to dinner and remember those brave times of war...this year, the presence of Nina, a prostitute and a hunt that end in a shootout, will call their instincts and traumatic pasts for one last mission...

1999

Peixe-Lua

Peixe-Lua 2000

5.00

The story of a family of bull fighters.

2000

Devolvidos

Devolvidos 2000

1

A document about the memory and life of men and women who lived in a Portuguese-American community and were once repatriated. Tony, Dulce, António, Manuel and Mário have one thing in common: they have been convicted in a harsh justice that repatriated them after many years of imprisonment. Within the Portuguese-American community to which they belonged, everyone worked regularly when the US authorities decided to reopen their court proceedings.

2000

Call Girl

Call Girl 2007

6.00

A powerful entrepreneur wants to build an exclusive resort hotel in Villanova, but he discovers the location he has in mind is protected by local land-use regulations. He hires Maria, a beautiful and elegant prostitute, to seduce the mayor, leaving him open to blackmail if he won't give the entrepreneur what he wants. Maria has no trouble twisting Meireles around her finger, but police detectives Madeira and Neves get wind of the plan and set out to expose the plot...

2007

Get a Life

Get a Life 2001

6.80

During one winter night, a Portuguese teenager, Alvaro, loses his life in a fight between a youth gang and the cops in a suburb of Paris. Cidalia, a 36 year old cleaning woman, his mother, decides to defy the code of silence of the Portuguese community and tries to find the truth. She losses her friends, her job and her family but gains a life.

2001

The Suspect

The Suspect 2000

6.40

A train compartment, four people, a ticket collector, a Barcelos penknife and a potential assassin. Will they all make it to the end of the journey?

2000