José António Loureiro

Movies

War
Director of Photography
The recollections of a Portuguese teacher in the present will make us follow his father, Manuel, former fighter in our colonial war and constantly tormented with those memories. He'll walk us through the depths of the physical sites that haunt him - from training barracks to the lakes and gardens of his youth and infatuation - and also to his memory's gulf - war and passion combined, entangled, in a battle that questions or howls immemorial existential doubts.
Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secret
Director of Photography
In a small coastal African village, Jaki lives, in a house full of cousins ruled with an iron fist by grandmother Agnette and haunted by the mysterious figure of Grandmother Catarina. The life of the neighbourhood revolves around the construction of a Mausoleum for a deceased President that threatens to demolish the local residents’ houses. “Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret” is an adaptation of Ondjaki's novel.
Our Consul in Havana
Director of Photography
The film is liberally inspired by the period when Eça de Queiroz was Portuguese Consul in Cuba, when still a Spanish colony. Eça de Queiroz struggles against local authorities in his defense of Chinese workers, brought to the sugar plantations by greedy middlemen and exploited as slaves. Two parallel stories unfold, that of a Chinese girl which Eça de Queiroz saves from the clutches of one of the island’s most powerful slave owners, and the other of a romance involving a young American woman on holidays in Havana.
California
Cinematography
A young Chinese girl and her mother struggle to find a better life in Portugal, the 'West Coast of Europe'.
O Coração Revelador
Director of Photography
A man takes care of another man. One is young, the other is old. The young man is mad, the old man is a victim. When evil lives inside of you, the whole world won’t let you sleep.
Soldier Millions
Director of Photography
A Portuguese soldier, who got stranded from his team during the La Lys battle, struggles by himself through dozens of German offensives so he can guarantee the safety of his companions.
A Song of Lisbon
Director of Photography
How happy and proud they are those two ladies back in Oporto! Thanks to them, their bright nephew can study medicine in Lisbon and may already have become a doctor. Little do they know, not only Vasco wastes all his time drinking, dancing and picking up girls but he has just failed his final exam! And in that same day, he receives an email from the two aunts announcing their visit to Lisbon! Will he be able to make them believe he is such a good student as they think?
O Leão da Estrela
Director of Photography
The story revolves around Anastácio, a supporter of Leões de Alcochete and Mr. Barata, a supporter of Inferno Futebol Clube. One day, the two teams face each other. Which team will win?
Cats Don't Have Vertigo
Director of Photography
Jô is kicked out of home by his father on his birthday. Having no place to go, he takes refuge in the terrace of Rose, who just lost her husband.
Until Tomorrow, Comrades
Director of Photography
Portugal, 1944. In a country oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, there are those who resist and mobilize the people to fight for bread and freedom, even if it cost them prison, torture or their lives.
Real Playing Game
Cinematography
In a future not too far away, Steve Battier, an elderly, terminally ill multi-millionaire, accepts the offer of a company - RPG - that in exchange for a high monetary sum, provides a very select group of clientèle the chance to be young again. For 10 hours, 10 millionaires from around the world, men and women of fame and power, are transferred to attractive and healthy younger bodies, to live in a world of temporary rejuvenation, in a game of real thrills, where every hour someone must die.
O Cônsul de Bordéus
Director of Photography
This is the story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a man of conviction who saved 30,000 lives during WWII, in June 1940. Among them were10,000 Jews. As the Portuguese General Consul stationed in Bordeaux, France, he issued 30,000 visas for safe passage to Portugal. He defied the direct orders of his government and exhibited courage, moral rectitude, unselfishness, and self-sacrifice by issuing visas to all refugees regardless of nationality, race, religion or political opinions.This narrative film expresses his heroic actions towards humanity, which will perpetuate his legacy of justice for a new generation. In 1966, Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations. He is considered to have achieved the largest single rescue operation of World War II.
Assault on the Santa Maria
Director of Photography
On January 22, 1961, a group of Portuguese and Spanish opposition movement members seized control of the Santa Maria, a Portuguese luxury cruise liner, an operation devised by Henrique Galvão to expose the Government of Portugal as a dictatorship.
O Último Voo do Flamingo
Cinematography
Tizangara, Mozambique. After the peace agreement. A mystery. UN soldiers exploding. An investigation is begun and Massimo is appointed to solve the mystery. Joaquim will have to translate, not only the words but the facts, in order for him to understand.
O Inimigo Sem Rosto
Director of Photography
A plot that surrounds police officers, politicians and consultants who crudely demonstrate the lines apparently hidden of the political system and public institutions.
The Beauty and the Paparazzo
Director of Photography
Telenovela star Mariana is on the verge of a nervous breakdown: shooting is not going smoothly, her popularity is waning, and she is forever being hounded by paparazzi. Frustrated, Mariana can't find out who is responsible for these invasions of her privacy. It is the feared 'Paparazzo' Gabriela Santos, who's real name is Juan. One day, Juan and Mariana meet by chance and fall in love. Now Juan must do everything he can to prevent Mariana from discovering his true identity.
4 Hearts
Director of Photography
Diana is a young woman about to enter adulthood. She lives with her father, Gabriel, a game machine dealer, and Magdalene, the stepmother, alongside those working in a hair salon in a shopping center. One day, Diana discovers that Magdalene not only keeps a secret relationship with Michael, the security center and instructor in the gym of the neighborhood, as resumed his old habit of playing. Not to allow the stepmother to his father do the same as her mother had done to her, Diana decides to intervene, approaching the Magdalene lover.
Contrato
Director of Photography
Peter McShade is a hitman. A job goes wrong when he kills the nephew of a Mafia Boss in Morocco.
The Art of Stealing
Cinematography
Two amateur thieves are hired to steal an extremely valuable Van Gogh painting from the abandoned farm of an Argentinian countess.
Call Girl
Director of Photography
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...
Julgamento
Director of Photography
In 1970, a man is tortured and murdered by the regime's secret police. Now nearly 40 years later, his friend, who had also been tortured, recognizes the man he deems responsible for the murder of his friend. Along with three old friends and the victim's daughter, they kidnap the man and take him to an isolated house. Once there, the concepts of justice and revenge begin to mix dangerously in a private trial with irreversible consequences.
Manô
Director of Photography
Kiss Me
Director of Photography
This movie bring us a story about a woman named Laura (Marisa Cruz) that lives in a small portuguese town during the 50's. Tired of living in such a small town she travells to a bigger town, in which she'll have the opportunity to feel free.
The Masked Avenger: Lagardere
Camera Operator
France, 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIII. When a dear friend, the Duke of Nevers, is treacherously assassinated by a powerful relative, a skilled swordsman, the noble Henri de Lagardère, seeks his rightful vengeance as he tries to protect the innocent life of the duke's last heir.
A Bomba
Director of Photography
A group of innocent hostages is left to their own deaths facing a clockwork bomb, while the whole country watches them on the TV.
Aniversário
Director of Photography
The anniversary, celebrating the thirty years of the marriage of Francisco and Leonor Teixeira, celebrated on their family farm. It is time to party and everyone party with the Teixeira's. Well, almost everyone. Ricardo, the youngest son, does not speak with his father for five years.
Facas e Anjos
Director of Photography
In 1983, little João Amaral Severo asks his father to go to the circus. His father, and army captain who had been recently widowed, refuses to take him under the pretext that the circus would draw his attention away from his studies. Ten years later João is a student in the Military College, and is tired of the harsh discipline imposed by his father and decides to join a travelling circus that stops in his hometown, Alcochete. From then on João, alone and free to live his life the way he wants, finds a world of magic, the love of Dolores (a young trapeze artist) and the family he never really had. Until a twist of fate turns João into a father...
Monsanto
Director of Photography
Rui Sequeira, a former fighter in the Colonial War, resident of a small village of Alentejo, celebrates another anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in the company of his wife and her daughter, the young Sara, with which he has a not so good relationship. On the night of the celebrations, the death of a friend forever alters his live, waking up a whole past long dormant.
When It Thunders
Director of Photography
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.
Amo-te Teresa
Director of Photography
Amo-te Teresa tells the forbidden love story of Teresa and Miguel, aged 35 and 15, respectively. Teresa is a doctor and, after a frustrated love life, she decides to abandon Lisbon and returns to her native land. Immediately, a strong attraction forms between Teresa and Miguel, a friend of her oldest son.
Xavier
Director of Photography
Xavier returns to Lisbon after a military stint, determined to lead a meaningful life, only to find his world closing in on him.
End of Conservation
Director of Photography
A satirical and delirious short which sums up the obsessions of João César Monteiro: film-making and… young women.
Malvadez
Cinematography
Coming from Fundão to Lisboa where he did conscription service, Matias found that the reality of the big city is not exactly how he remembers
Step by Step
Director of Photography
Nogueira, a man in his fifties, is a relic of times long past. While the youngsters at the school where he works as a caretaker still think the world is their oyster, Nogueira knows that, for him, most doors have long closed.
Recollections of the Yellow House
Director of Photography
Lisbon, 1989. A middle-aged poor man, tormented by an illness, lives in a cheap room in a family boarding house, in the old section of the city's waterfront.
The Cannibals
Assistant Camera
This odd film is a major representative of an even odder film genre: direct-to-celluloid opera. It was commissioned by the Portuguese master of style, director Manoel de Oliveira from composer João Paes. Musically, it ranges from 19th-century romanticism to popular, modernist and even "post-modernist" styles. In the initially tame story, a host-narrator tells the story of a wedding between the two lovebirds: Viscount d'Aveleda and the beautiful Marguerite. However, what happens in the bridal chamber is incredibly bizarre. The events after that are even stranger (the film out-does even Luis Buñuel in that department), and the wedding guests and family indulge in cannibalism, among other perversions.
Balada da Praia dos Cães
First Assistant Camera
In Portugal, in the 60s, the corpse of a man appears on Dog's Beach. The corpse is identified as the major Dantas, a man wanted by authorities after his escape from a military prison where he was awaiting trial for insurrection.
Cheaters
Assistant Camera
Swaying between pleasure and despair, Elric throws himself into his pathological passion for the casino. Meeting Suzie could have saved him, but the young woman also sinks into gambling hell. The couple then start getting involved in the fearsome world of professional cheaters.
Circle of Passions
Camera Operator
An aristocratic Sicilian family living in the 1950s. Count Villafratti has sex one night with his nymphomaniac daughter because he thinks she is his wife.