André Gomes

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.

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.

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.

Margo ha abandonado su brillante carrera como músico por Furio. Furio, por su parte, debe lograr la restauración de un hotel en condiciones imposibles. Tensiones y obstáculos se van acumulando, mientras la fecha de la inauguración se va acercando.

Adaptación libre y cinematográfica de uno de los cuentos más famosos del francés Barbey d´Aureville (1808-1889), incluido en el libro Les Diaboliques. Roberto es uno de esos hombres para los que la simulación es todo un arte. Para unos, se trata de un caballero refinado; para otros un libertino. En cualquier caso, Roberto es un hombre sumido en el más profundo de los aburrimientos, ya que ha agotado y satisfecho todos los placeres de la vida. Hasta que conoce a una cortesana que le introduce en una historia de amor verdadero, pero también de pasados imperfectos.

La trágica historia de las numerosas vidas del padre Dinis, sus oscuros orígenes y sus piadosas obras, y los diferentes destinos de todos aquellos que, atrapados en una siniestra red de amor, odio y crimen, se cruzan con él a través de años de aventuras y desgracias en la convulsa Europa de finales del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX.

Zé es un joven portugués que emigra a Venezuela en la década de los sesenta. Él está pasando por un momento difícil – los empleos son escasos y las perspectivas son muy bajas para tantos sueños. De casualidad se encuentra con el capitán Henrique Galvão, uno de los opositores más activos del régimen de Salazar. Fascinado por Galvão, Zé se une al grupo de exiliados políticos portugueses y gallegos que bajo el mando militar portugués, prepara la acción de protesta más espectacular que se llevó a cabo hasta ese momento: el asalto y la ocupación de la nave “Santa María”, joya de la corona de los portugueses.

A crime drama based on the life of a woman who lived for years with a man that was the head of a corruption network in the Portuguese football world.

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese countryside to an unspecified destination, the traveling pair embark on a series of highly philosophical discussions. Flowing with tales of his life in the military and previous sexual escapades, Tiago trades a series of tales with his rapt passenger, including the story of a vengeful spurned lover who plots revenge on the nobleman who rejected her by transforming a prostitute into a society lady and convincing him to marry the tainted bride.

A serious young man of free spirit is forced by his surroundings to become rich at all costs. A group of blind children tries to open the eyes of the unbelievers to the Christian faith. Retired nuns who open a brothel, to pay the running costs of the convent. These rather ironic paradoxes turn this fairytale into a philosophical fable.

The story of Brazilian Antônio José da Silva, a jewish poet, playwright and lawyer living in the 18th Century Lisbon, who managed to avoid Inquisition by converting himself to Catholicism, after being tortured. But his fierce criticism of Portugal's élite led him to persecution and torture, becoming kind of a scapegoat.

Pierre, a middle-aged tourist guide, is the victim of a sudden failure : he does not recognize anything about him any longer. He goes back home and in his apartment he finds a mysterious young man who tells him he is here to avenge a young woman who has taken her own life. What share of responsibility does Pierre hold in this situation?

Vincent, a young Swiss, is upset by his meeting with the city of Lisbon. He will meet two persons: a prostitute of high flight and a great writer fallen and suicidal.

This Portuguese movie directed by João Botelho, is part of The Four Elements series. This is the second episode, The Air.

The French painter Edouard Manet painted four canvases depicting the execution in 1867 of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. This short dramatic film evokes the artist's studio and the events of Maximilian's death, using a single, uninterrupted shot to present the artistic thought process through the eyes of the painter. The narration, written by the film's director, takes the form of an imagined interior monologue, presented in voice-over style in French and German with English subtitles. It alludes to the narrative, historical and visual texts that Manet drew upon to form his four versions of the painting.

End of the 20th century. A group of scientists executes a project aiming to prevent a nuclear war with the planet Khalom. From their experimental project, involving manipulating events in the past, two mysterious human creatures travel between the present and the 19th century, and back - getting in love with four different persons.

Isidore es una mujer que vive con sus padres adoptivos. Su padre espera que ella se suicide, pero por el contrario, Isidore irá conociendo a extraños personajes que la acompañarán en un viaje metafísico y criminal.

Una familia arisócrática siciliana en los años 50 del siglo XX. El conde Villafratti practica el sexo una noche con su hermana nimfómana porque cree que es su esposa.

La película comienza con una premisa: un estudiante debe salir de Francia pues ha cometido una ilegalidad, un marinero le ofrece su puesto en un buque mercante que está por zarpar, pero a cambio de que escuche su historia. A partir de ahí, el relato no arranca verdaderamente, sino que explota, estalla en múltiples relatos de la vida del marinero y sus encuentros con diversos personajes (un ciego, una bailarina, un hombre de 90 años, un intelectual, entre otros).

The film was to be a documentary, but evolved during production to a fictional film. It nevertheless adheres strictly to the poems and letters exchanged by two of the most outstanding names of the Modernist Movement, Fernando Pessoa (in Lisbon) and Mário de Sá-Carneiro (in Paris). Their endless conversation was dramatically and suddenly terminated.

An “artist film” that crosses Karl Martin, Martin Heidegger and the Communist Party’s Manifesto.