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.
Gertrudes
In a rural landscape, that resembles an old Portugal, an elderly man find out that his wife, whom he believed to be dead, was seen shopping in town. Spiteful and sad, he wants to hide from everyone, but his friends insist that he uses this situation to become stronger and try to get married again.
Aia de Portugal
North of Italy, the von Kettens dispute the forces of the Episcopate of Trent. Herr Ketten seeks marriage in a distant country, Portugal. After their honeymoon journey back home, Ketten leaves again for the war. Eleven years elapsed… Rumours are running about the presence of that 'foreigner' in the castle. Some say she's a heretic. Until one day, the Bishop of Trento ends up dying and, with the signature of peace, falls the background of von Ketten's life. Will the Portuguese win, where death seems to be moving in?
In 2016, Edgar Pêra released The Amazing Spectator, a playful investigation into cinema’s disquieting essence that had everything from negative film images of boobs and positively splendid interviews to a donkey hand puppet. The film and an accompanying book formed his PhD thesis. But as so often with him, projects turn into obsessions – especially when there are masses of notions not pondered, thoughts not elaborated upon. And so KINORAMA - Beyond the Walls of Cinema was born, a stand-alone continuation of The Amazing Spectator that looks at cinema’s future in cyberspace and, accordingly, perhaps the end of its enslavement to figurative representation, the 'stupid sacred in narrative cinema' (to use a Pêra’ism), realism and artificiality in 3D cinema, and many other aspects.
Andreia
During a night of humiliation, Raymond lives an inner revolt and a kaleidoscopic journey in a country that is about to collapse.
Luísa is forbidden to go out on the street by her mother after being harassed. At home, imagination is the limit.
A kino-investigation about spectatorship, a continuous conversation between different kinds of spectators: which one is more cinema: Citizen Kane on a mobile phone or a football game projected in a cinema theatre? What is the cinema of uncertainty? How many kinds of amazement exist? Does fear and belief precede amazement? What are the rights and duties of the spectator? Is the essay film a manifesto against voyeurism? Should spectators be paid? What amazes the spectator of this day and age?
Tia
I am the double of the shadow of my own image. An allegory that occupies my place. This is my act of contrition. Beyond good and evil, I stand as an equation: Its result cannot be manipulated By morals or ethics. In mathematics there is no place for beliefs Just as life and death Are a certain fate.
A bunch of spectators trapped in a cinema theatre.
Dona Adelaide
On a spring night of 1999, two teenagers set out in an adventure to save the VHS.
A triptych of short stereoscopic films by Peter Greenaway, Jean-Luc Godard and Edgar Pêra. Includes "The Three Disasters" by Godard, "Cinesapiens" by Pêra and "Just in Time" by Greenaway.
Inspired by popular cult, O COVEIRO is part light part darkness, a bedtime story and almost a nightmare. A child is born and his parents die of fright just to see him. André Gil Mata revisits the traditional Portuguese tale, in a fantastic movie where heads bounce, but you hear a song.
What the ocean bringeth, the ocean taketh away
Mãe
This is the story of a man who after living over ten years isolated away from his country, returns to avenge His brother's death. Inspired by the writings of David Henry Thoreau, he is translating 'Civil Disobedience' into Portuguese. The action is set between 1908 and 1910, between the assassination of the Portuguese King and Prince and the creation of the Portuguese Republic, an era where anarchists who fight against the monarchy often cross the path of burglars. On a country where corruption is set, the state representatives try to rob, arrest and kill innocents. The main character faces the tyranny of the state and tries to save the rest of his family. But this is a country where nothing changes.
Justina
A photographer, Isaac is asked by hotel owners to take portraits of their recently deceased daughter Angélica. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, she appears to come back to life just for him. He instantly falls in love with her. From that moment, he will be haunted by Angélica day and night.
Voisine
Werner Schroeter directed this dark and surreal tale of a man determined to save a lost lover from a grim fate at the hands of a violent mob. The city of Santa Maria is falling into chaos as an armed military faction is poised to take power in a coup d'etat. Ossorio used to call Santa Maria home, and he has returned in its darkest hour to find the woman he loves, hoping to rescue her from the violence that is lurks around the corner. As Ossorio searches for his love, he meets Victoria in a shabby hotel, who in turn introduces him to her father Barcala, who for the right price is willing to take Ossorio and another passenger away on his boat. While Ossorio is willing to pay Barcala what he wants, can he find the mysterious woman before the ship sets sail?
Transeunte Cuba
A true story of a doctor and his wife who went on a journey in order to prove that discoverer Christopher Columbus was in fact Portuguese. Inspired by the book "Cristóvão Colon Era Português".
Esfinge
Free adaptation of Sophocles classic tragedy “King Oedipus” crossed with Jack Kerouac's classic “On the Road”. The starting point is the loss of identity of a generation of Portuguese emigrants. Tebas tells the story of a young man who, looking for his origins, departs from Paris to Portugal with a beatnik truck driver. The film is a voyage into the strange depths of Portugal in the form of surreal road-movie.
Queta
Luciano, fresh out of jail, was taken by his brother, Flórido, to serve in the home of wealthy Alfreda. He was surprised when she told him that her greatest desire was to see the Virgin Mary. Now comes this rich land owner with her sublime pretensions. Isn't it enough for her to have an Aston Martin and a Jaguar in the garage and ten different dresses per season? It was all professor Heschel's fault. Or someone else's. Anyway, to go beyond the promise is heresy. Alfreda said that she wouldn't rest until she saw the Virgin and made her some questions. Filipe Quinta, the Forger, says he has a solution. Meanwhile, Bahia, her husband, listens do music.
Mãe
Having lost her place among the social elite, a widow remarries and starts a family.
Stepmother
An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.
Senhora
Manoel is an aging film director who travels with the film crew through Portugal in search of the origins of Afonso, a famous French actor whose father emigrated from Portugal to France and in process remembers his own youth.
The young girl, Antónia Margarida Castelo Branco, is handed over by her mother to Brás Telles de Meneses because of the obscure interests between rural aristocratic families in the North. Brás is a ruined man, a bohemian with a reputation for violence and erratic behaviour. Antonia’s fortune is the first sacrifice made by the young wife. Fascinated by the man who humiliates and ill-treats her, she follows him in a pilgrimage to increasingly barren lands, to increasingly less hospitable houses.
