Luís Lucas

Raised without parents in an isolated mansion on Portugal’s southernmost coast, Milene turned out a sort of adult wild child — impulsive, often withdrawn, prone to hysterical outbursts. When her grandmother-minder dies, the stuffy relatives who ignored Milene until now must decide what to “do with” her. Institutionalization? Some menial job? They don’t reckon she might have her own firm ideas on the matter, especially after she meets construction worker Antonino, who’s part of a much warmer clan living on the grounds of the shuttered factory that once enriched her own family. The heart wants what it wants…but will anyone respect Milene’s desires?

The character of a novel gains life to torment the author, revisiting and reliving the story of a crime.

Organized like a dream, structured like a musical and with texts, both spoken and sung, that lead us to unexpected, chaotic and exciting situations, which try to grasp part of what the unattainable Alexandre O'Neill left us.

VIEIRARPAD begun with the correspondence between the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szènes, between 1932-1961. The letters and the intimacy of their words are pretext for the exploration of an equally intimate visual journey

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.

George es una joven agorafóbica que no puede alejarse más de 522 pasos de su casa. Un día, una tragedia personal la obliga a emprender un viaje desde España a su Portugal natal. A lo largo del camino, el mundo entero de George comienza a ensancharse…

En algún momento del Medioevo tardío, el noble Herren von Ketten (Marcello Urgeghe), en pleno conflicto con el Episcopado de Trento, busca matrimonio en un país lejano, Portugal. Su esposa será una mujer portuguesa (Clara Riedenstein) que se instalará en el castillo de los von Ketten al norte de Italia. Recluida allí, con su esposo en la guerra, quedará embarazada de su primer hijo. Su vida transcurrirá entre criados, lecturas, juegos con un cachorro de lobo y el aprendizaje de algunos oficios manuales. Será un universo pautado por el ritmo masculino y en el que las mujeres deben parir, criar y esperar.

Lisbon Attorney and former DA Eduardo Silva never got over the death, two years ago, of his wife valentine in a car crash. When he and his gypsy assistant Marcia Amaya hear crime baron Tiago Zarco is arrested having been found over the corpse of the massive pharmaceutical fraud case, she's surprised like the DA that Eduardo offers to defend Zarco, who accepts while keeping his uncooperative right hand-lawyer on, even if that solves their law firm's dire financial state. Silva seems prepared to risk his lawyer license for vengeance on the monster who had an affair with Valentina, yet refuses to look away from indications that Zarco hasn't committed or ordered the murder, but sets a risky trap for those fiends, which proves extremely difficult and dangerous.

This is the story of a young Mozambican footballer called Eusébio, a gifted athlete destined to great achievements, coveted by rival clubs, Sporting and Benfica, which ends up hiring him. Blackmail, kidnapping attempts, ministers involved, press hysteria and huge money offers make the story of this football transfer into a saga evolving between the two continents. It ends up when the legend begins: with Eusébio’s first match at the Benfica Stadium.

Two years after consorting with the wrong people cost him his job as public prosecutor, Eduardo Silva is a measly defense attorney, who works from his hotel room. Loosing a bit from her fellow-angler uncle, he gives a shot as unpaid apprentice to freshly-graduated gypsy Marcia Amaya, whom nobody would consider hiring so far, but is soon offered crossing to the office of Silva's successor as prosecutor. Their first client is common-as-muck Joana Soares, accused of murdering her beached-up husband after a public fight, without an alibi, claiming a blackout. Eduardo is countered while working out, with help from Marcia's and Joana's families, how the affair actually relates to illegal trade in medicine, with twists including the involvement of a crime lord.

Daniel had a plan, a sort of journal of the future, written in a notebook. Sometimes he went back to rectify small things, but still, life seemed pretty easy and happiness too. But, all of a sudden, everything changed for the worse: Portugal collapsed and Daniel lost his job. He couldn't afford to pay the mortgage for his house any more. His wife, also unemployed, left with his children, searching for better opportunities.

In an isolated village of the Alentejo region, a conflict arises. José Vitorino, one of the landowners of the region, rich in prehistoric monuments, wants to build a luxurious solarium in lands filled with ancient rocks, places of devotion and sacred rituals. Indifferent to the people’s protest, who believe in the magical powers of the stones and that the region’s drought is due to the rocks’ destruction, José Vitorino hires an architect to plan his new house. On christmas eve, in the middle of the winter solstice, a strange ceremony around a dolmen, once an altar for bloody sacrifices in more remote times, releases a harmful spell. A race against time to reverse the faulty charm begins.

Lazarus de Jesus is the adopted son of a wealthy lady from Lisbon, whom he calls Grandmother. It is she who introduces him to Godfather, a great businessman who takes him as his protégé, and Angelina, the woman Grandma wants him to marry. But Lazarus has other hidden interests, the most important of which is an obsessive fixation on female armpits. When he sees the violinist Maria Pia playing, Lazarus immediately falls in love and starts to live for her, which will precipitate an absolutely unpredictable ending.

In Lisbon, Marcelo writes a novel, using the life of his own wife, Beatriz, as the main inspiration to the story. The creative process of the book takes a dangerous path, ultimately compromising the love they feel for each other.

A day in the life of a grandpa.

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.

Diana was born and raised in the neighborhood of Estrela Polar, lost his parents when he was a child and leads a band of criminals who negotiates for drugs, money laundering, weapons, paintings, jewelry and tobacco.

Jorge is a loner and a writer of popular books. At night, he looks through other people's windows and thinks that they are truly happy.

The film tells the story of Martin, a child of nine years, who one day disappears from private school where he studied. Police mounted a major search operation across the city to find him. All hypotheses are possible: What happened?

Zézé Gamboa's sardonic historical drama follows a good-hearted, apolitical con man who, on the eve of Angolan independence in the mid-1970s, pulls off a massive swindle at the expense of the Portuguese colonial administration — and soon after finds himself hailed as a hero of the national liberation struggle.

El protagonista de la cinta es Ian, un profesor de orientación especial que llega a una prestigiosa clínica oftalmológica de Lisboa para dirigir una terapia. Uno de sus pacientes afectados por la ceguera es Eva, una joven que trata de esconder su minusvalía. Ian pone en práctica métodos que suscitan polémicas dentro del equipo de la clínica pero consigue ganarse la confianza de los pacientes.

Between February and July 1858, in the Massabielle cave, the Virgin appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a miserable little girl from Lourdes. A true revolution in the heart of the Second Empire that shakes the established order by his universal message of love and prayer.

Pedro, un joven ingeniero de caminos de 27 años que está destinado en una pequeña aldea del norte de Portugal, espera ansioso su traslado de vuelta a Lisboa. Justo cuando está a punto de regresar, recibe una carta de una multinacional en la que le ordenan que cierre la página web que ha creado, aduciendo una infracción en el nombre del dominio. Si no lo hace inmediatamente, la compañía amenaza con ponerle una demanda por 500.000 euros. Sólo hay un problema: la página está a nombre de la asociación del pueblo y sólo sus miembros pueden cerrar el sitio. Pero ahora los habitantes del pueblo se niegan, siguiendo un razonamiento aplastante: si les pueden poner una demanda por 500.000 euros significa que la web vale 500.000 euros. Si la multinacional quiere cerrarla, primero tendrá que comprarla. La situación rápidamente queda fuera de control; el peculiar litigio da la vuelta al mundo. (FILMAFFINITY)

Francia, 1656. Julie decide disfrazarse de espadachín para buscar a su verdadera familia después de que unos hombres hayan asesinado a su padre adoptivo, Gastón de Maupin. En su búsqueda tendrá que enfrentarse a miles de obstáculos y peligros. (FILMAFFINITY)

Every year, four ex-soldiers who call themselves "Os Imortais" ("The Immortals"), get together with four women to celebrate their war deeds and remember the old days, back in the war. On the summer of 1985, tired of their monotonous lives, they decide to rob a bank. Joaquim Malarranha, a chief inspector from the local police force who is about to retire, crosses their path and chooses to spend his last days of duty trying to solve the robbery. But as he carries on with his investigation, he discovers more than he could have ever imagined...

Mariana is a 17 year old girl, who, after being rapped by drug addict, finds out she's pregnant and, in her path, discovers how difficult it can be entering adulthood.

In 1980, a small plane carrying the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and six others crashed during takeoff in Camarate, Portugal, killing all on board. The police investigation decided it was an accident caused by pilot error. But controversy raged for twenty years, and the Parliament investigated it no less than six times. Finally, in 2000, in response to a suit by the families of the survivors, the High Court had to decide whether to open a criminal investigation, or close the case forever.

In order to make some much-needed cash for himself, 65-year-old Portuguese prison inmate Eugenio impersonates a young woman and begins a romantic correspondence with a lonely Portuguese truck-driver living in Boston, convincing him that her tragic life has culminated in financial dire straits so he will send money. At first Eugenio's sister Idalina assists him in creating the character of Maria da Luz. Touched by her sweetness and apparent loving nature, the trucker willingly sends her money. When Idalina starts fearing they will be caught, she backs out of her arrangement with Eugenio who then convinces his young cellmate Vasco to help write the letters and even sends a picture of himself at age seven to "prove" that Maria has a young son. As prison life exacts an increasingly heavy toll upon Eugenio's health, his feminine alter-ego helps sustain him.

Lisbon, early 1940s. The neutral port town is an open door to freedom, for those who are escaping the Nazi occupied France and eastern European countries, and a war field for spies of every description. Lisbon became a cosmopolitan town, where the Duke of Windsor, Primo de Rivera, Pola Negri, Leslie Howard, Walter Schellenberg and Juan Garcia are often together in the luxury hotels and night-clubs. Espionage and crime go hand in hand, despite of, or encouraged by, the Portuguese secret police.

On an isolated Portuguese island, a nameless man makes a mental journey which brings him into contact with the strange and menacing world without peace and harmony.

Miguel (Luis Miguel Cintra) is lucky that his income will only level off if he neglects his business as a financier, and his wife and family will be well supported. Why? Because he has begun hearing noises that no one else hears, noises that bother him a great deal, and that make it impossible for him to bear human society. His wife (Jessica Weiss) is thoroughly put out by this radically changed behavior in her formerly good husband, but though she considers leaving him, she stays by his side. Deep in the mountains, Cecelia (Rita Dias), a devout, pure young cowherd, has been brutally raped by an old man. Her boyfriend (Pedro Hestnes) has killed the rapist, and fled the area. As a result of the rape, Cecelia is pregnant. One day, while driving in the mountains, Miguel gives Cecelia's boyfriend a ride. The two of them chance upon her sitting amid the rocks with her infant baby.

Macau 1897. Life is easy for Portuguese settlers. Young reveler Francisco Frontaria is deemed as irresponsible for all his partying and boozing. Shunned and exiled for crossing a line by insulting the daughter of a prominent family, he finds himself penniless and vagrant.

Redheaded twins Armando and Beatriz always dreamed of being firefighters but during a rainy, uneventful winter they find themselves spending less time putting out infernos than they do helping neighbors who’ve locked themselves out of their apartments. This is how Armando meets a pretty young woman with whom he begins a tentative courtship. But soon a rift grows between the siblings and, spurred by Armando’s exaggerated stories about his nascent relationship, Beatriz begins experiencing aural hallucinations that can only be remedied through music and, finally, the love of a stranger. Pinto made this impassioned fairy tale as part of a series of films about the four elements. - FilmLinc

The story of a child who faces the emptiness that surrounds the figure of his parents, disappeared in Africa.

Episodes from entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a professorish soldier recounts them while marching through a Portuguese African colony in 1973.

Some time ago Gerardo knew another man of the same age called Berardo. When he said the name, Berardo expressed his oppinion violently, saying that the «G» was owed him and that Gerardo, since he owned it had somehow stolen something from him. Berardo then tries to get something back which soon goes beyond a baptismal name. Gerardo whitnesses this strange spectacle of himself as a place where, after Berardo, other people try to get something back, something that escapes them about themselves. Three women - Adália, Miranda and Virgínia - are whitnesses to this game

Last feature film of Stanislav Barabas

A film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Hard Times" set in a Portuguese industrial town of the 1980s.

Set four years after the Portuguese revolution and the simultaneous loss of the Portuguese empire in Africa, the story concerns a director who sells guns to finance his play.

Un muchacho sordomudo es acusado de haber cometido un brutal asesinato.

In Africa, during the colonial war, a patrol is lost in the bush and a soldier dies in operation. Twelve years later, in Portugal, the soldier family meets in peace.

Ambulatory history, freely inspired by Georg Büchner's biography (1813-37) and the reasons that led him first to political intervention and then to strict isolation. With students of unidentified present time (1968? 1970?), the themes developed, in Büchner, are triggered by the publication of "The Messenger of Hesse", a pamphlet addressed to the peasants, urging them to revolt. Their misunderstanding, as well as the repression of the young revolutionaries, leads Büchner to a particularly skeptical and painful attitude...

Dona Elvira promises to get a job from José through the typical Portuguese wedge. In parallel, they are bizarre aspects and eccentric figures of the city life, including the tragedy of the actress Maria Alves.

During the century of the Spanish Gold, Doña Prouhèze, wife of a nobleman, deeply loves Don Rodrigo, who is forced to leave Spain and go to America. Meanwhile Prouhèze is sent to Africa to rule the city of Mogador. Ten years later Rodrigo leaves America and travels to Africa in search of Prouhèze to find out that she died and eventually meeting her daughter.

A Dutch woman visits a girlfriend in Portugal, but first spends a few days in a deserted villa by the sea. In flashbacks it becomes clear that her life is dominated by fear. She slowly starts to bring more order to her existence.

Director Jorge Silva Melo has developed a viable, though highly intellectual mystery story about the world of art and culture and murder in this somewhat theatrical presentation. When German artist Bernd Hoffmann (Michael König) arrives in Lisbon to oversee the installation of his paintings in a joint exhibition with another Berlin artist, Hanna Brauer (Charlotte Schwab), Hanna never shows up. Hoffmann is puzzled because he is certain he saw a video sequence with Hanna at the exhibition, and he begins to look for her. Another Lisbon cultural center, a theater, is also having problems that may or may not be related -- and the mystery deepens when Hanna is found dead, either by her own hand, or murdered.

A sickly young girl is given away by her father to a childless couple. Twenty years later, she marries her adopted father.

The bandoneon player Daniel and the boxer Toni arrive independently from each other in a provincial town in Latin America where they are booked to perform at a folk festival. Both of them are completely apolitical but are forced by external circumstances to take a political position. Toni falls in love with the daughter of an influential attorney but has to keep his love a secret. Meanwhile, Daniel learns about the atrocities committed by the Junta from the town’s residents.

Dina (Maria Santiago) is a teenager brought up by her grandmother, employed as a housekeeper for a fairly well-off family. Since Dina only has her grandmother, she spends her time fantasizing about her life and reading comic-book love stories -- activities that do nothing to improve her dim perspective of reality. Due to these handicaps and her own inexperience, she gets involved with Django (Luis Lucas), a shady character who decides to use her as bait to attract men and then rob them. One day when both are in a taxi with robbery in mind, the driver gets suspicious so Django shoots him, and so does Dina. She escapes and runs away -- though it seems like she has learned too little too late. This story unfolds against a time of upheaval in Portugal (mid-1970s) when the military government is formulating a constitution and social changes are happening everywhere.

Luís - ex-student in Lisbon and ex-combatant in Africa - finds, after returning, Maria, secretary who has a relationship with António. He lives in a palace with his children, two old aunts and a Dominican friar, a former missionary.

A man finds a mansion with a strange inhabitant.

The film of a performance of a selection of cabaret comedy sketches by Karl Valentin, with Jorge Silva Melo as stage director. The show was a complete success and has become almost legendary. Solveig Nordlund shot it, adding some more sketches that weren’t included on the show.

A short film.

Adaptation of a Portuguese traditional tale. A travelling man rests at a inn. While sleeping, three beautiful women tell him where to go, the black islands, where he can find them and marry the one that is a princess.

La vida de san Juan Bautista de La Salle, que vivió en la Francia del XVII y que, ante la miseria de sus conciudadanos, intentó ponerle remedio a cualquier coste. Es conocido principalmente por su fundación, los Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas, con la que pretendió acercar la educación a los que no tenían nada.