Rafael Gonçalves Cardoso

Debut feature by Leonor Teles. World Premiere at Locarno76.

In an ominous Lisbon courtyard where the last executioner of the kingdom once lived, an accident is waiting to happen. After a patient game of who's observing who, four characters will collide with dire consequences. Inspired by the novel The Damned Yard by Nobel Prize-winning Bosnian writer Ivo Andrić, this is a masterclass in slow cinema, a pure 16mm cinematic pleasure by André Gil Mata.

In 1974, after years of civil war, the Portuguese and their descendants fled the colony of Angola where independentist groups gradually claimed their territory back. A tribal girl discovers love and death when her path crosses that of a young Portuguese soldier. Meanwhile, another group of Portuguese soldiers is barracked inside an infinite wall from which they will have to escape once the past comes out of the grave to claim its long-awaited justice.

Beatriz married Henrique on the day of her 21st birthday. Henrique, a naval officer, would spend long periods at sea. Ashore, Beatriz, who learned everything from the verticality of plants, took great care of the roots of their six children. The oldest son, Jacinto (Hyacinth), my father, dreamed he could be a bird. One day, suddenly, Beatriz died. My mom didn’t die suddenly, but she too died when I was 17 years-old. On that day, me and my father met in the loss of our mothers and our relationship was no longer just that of father and daughter.

Maria starts to show signs of wanting to belong somewhere else: scales appear on her skin, roots appear on her legs, and she hears the sound of water - she dreams of being a fish. One day her daughter comes across her disappearance and reconstructs, through the memory of her gestures and meetings with her mother, a possible explanation for her escape.

Candide is a cold and seductive serial killer who, after kissing a girl who just jumped off a balcony, becomes a superstar under the world's microscope.

Daughter of two worlds, the one that the English parents left behind and the Portuguese land of her upbringing that still calls her a foreigner, Ruby moves between the borders of both, without belonging to either.

Through a city that carries the weight of broken expectations and tough absencies, we follow the day of three young adults. César who got into a photoshoot by accident, Chloé who hopes to find a place to do her own work, and Helena who is back in her town for some days, only to find the living shadow of a loss.

A young sound director has a task. Rafael must record a crucial sound for a film. With his headphones on he scans the city of Lisbon, looking and listening for this elusive sonic eccentricity – his journey made harder by all sorts of disruptive noises.

Miguel —alias Tibars, alias “Djon África,” born and raised in Portugal— is a kindhearted Rastafarian who loves women and lives a carefree life. Until one day a stranger tells him he's the spitting image of his father, “a player and a crook.” His father, whom he never even knew! This intriguing discovery makes him change tack. Particularly when his grandmother, who always took care of him, finally tells him how his father was in prison; how sad Miguel was as a toddler when he couldn't see him; how his father was banished to Cape Verde. Miguel goes there to visit him. Who is this man?

A man, a child, two wars, a river, a tree. A man and a child meet under a tree on a river bank, sharing the same memory and a secret. They find in each other the serenity, the silence and the time they lost in the flowing water of the river.

Alberto is 40 years old and lives with his mother in an apartment complex where he works as a concierge. One day, a circus group settles near Alberto’s residence, disturbing his everyday life and awakening his forgotten desire for independence and freedom.

Wayward boy punishes his mother’s lover. Beauty and horror fondle each other. Young gods callously abjure conventional morality. Death goes whoring in child’s guise. Living in a world of role play, Miguel spends all his time playing with his sister Clara. They have a close bond that is made even more intense by Clara's illness. Yet despite all his efforts, Miguel senses that there's something missing in Clara's life that he cannot give her. Time is running out, and her health is deteriorating. One evening, he decides to approach a young man.