Joana Niza Braga

Debut feature by Leonor Teles. World Premiere at Locarno76.

Debut feature by Leonor Teles. World Premiere at Locarno76.

Like every summer, little Salomé returns to her family village nestled in the Portuguese mountains for the holidays. As the vacations begin in a carefree atmosphere, her beloved grandmother suddenly dies. While the adults are tearing each other apart over the funeral, Salomé is haunted by the spirit of the one who was considered a witch.

As a result of the pandemic and the economic crisis, there is a widespread revolt in the main cities of the country and Paulo and Cristina, an upper-middle-class couple with a newborn child, only do not join the popular indignation because they agreed, that same night, to organize a dinner for two friends: João, going through a divorce process that plunges him into a strange depression; and Raquel, Cristina's childhood friend who has spent the last few years crossing the planet on a journey of self-discovery. It's a night where, while the world changes outside, people reveal themselves inside, in this apartment where the confrontation between the real and the virtual reveals the most terrible truths.

Ara has always believed she will vanish when she turns 28 years old. As her birthday approaches, she submerges in the most fundamental sensations of existence. A masterful debut film from director-writer Ágata de Pinho, whose performance leads her character from trauma to catharsis in the most beautiful way.

A nun is called upon to adopt her 15-year-old nephew, and as a consequence religious, familial and sensual love become entangled.

Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest writers in Portuguese, created an immense parallel world and several heteronyms so as to endure the loneliness of genius. José Saramago, 1998 Nobel Laureate in Literature, has a heteronym, Ricardo Reis, return to Portugal after a 16-year exile in Brazil. 1936 is a perilous year with Mussolini’s fascism, Hitler’s Nazism, Spain’s Civil War and Salazar’s New State in Portugal. And Fernando Pessoa meets his creation, Reis. Two women, Lídia and Marcenda, are Reis’ carnal and impossible passions. “Life and Death as one” allows for literature and cinema.

Goldie, a precocious teenager in a family shelter, wages war against the system to keep her sisters together while she pursues her dreams of being a dancer. This is a story about displaced youth, ambition, and maintaining your spirit in the face of insurmountable obstacles.

The Gardner family moves to a remote farmstead in rural New England to escape the hustle of the 21st century. They are busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard, melts into the earth, and infects both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly colour. To their horror, the family discovers this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches—including them.

Film biography dwelling on the hectic artistic life of António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop rock singer from the 80s, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984.

A once-abused woman devotes herself to ridding victims of their domestic abusers while hunting down the one she must kill to be truly free.

After a violent encounter, Roy finds Rocky and sees something in her eyes that prompts a fateful decision. He takes her with him as he flees to Galveston, an action as ill-advised as it is inescapable.

To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the others, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.

A desolate woman struggles to accept her husband's unexpected death, but is confronted with his recurrent return to the waking world.

“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

At an abandoned chapel a teenager gives herself to a boy, unsuspecting of what's lurking in the shadows.

At an abandoned chapel a teenager gives herself to a boy, unsuspecting of what's lurking in the shadows.

Rhoma Acans is a journey of self-discovery undertaken by the director in order to understand the true identity weight of her Gypsy heritage, from the history of his own family to the way it moves away or approaches the story of a young gypsy inside the tradition – Her name is Joaquina.

Rhoma Acans is a journey of self-discovery undertaken by the director in order to understand the true identity weight of her Gypsy heritage, from the history of his own family to the way it moves away or approaches the story of a young gypsy inside the tradition – Her name is Joaquina.