João Bénard da Costa

Director Manuel Mozos draws an intimate portrait of João Bénard da Costa, programmer, critic, actor and, for 18 years, director of the Portuguese Film Museum, who passed away in 2009.

The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso — and 64 more. Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving.

Una historia sobre el arte y los hombres cultos, y sobre como su arte a arte y su cultura se revelan inútiles ante las duras realidades de la vida del siglo XX.

Reunión de 33 cortometrajes de unos tres minutos cada uno realizados por 35 directores con motivo del 60 aniversario del Festival de Cannes.

Joáo Bénard da Costa, director of the Portuguese National Film Archives [deceased in 2009], interviews the dean of contemporaneous film directors [96-years-old then]. Two humanists of different philosophical backgrounds, both with their long, entire lives dedicated to culture in general (music, painting, literature) and to film in particular, discuss freely, sometimes haltingly, the director's power as a creator or a magician, the philosophy beyond particular scenes in classic movies, film technique, the importance of color, sound and music to films, art versus entertainment, and much more. Their talk takes place in a museum room, seating in front of "The Annunciation" (a 1510 oil painting by João Vaz, a Portuguese artist), which eventually leads to a discussion of 'Leonardo da Vinci', and the relationship between a trend-setter master and his disciples.

A 58 minute documentary about the life of João Bénard da Costa.

Luciano, sale de prisión y es llevado por su hermano, Flórido, a casa de Alfreda, donde trabajará como sirviente. Alfreda le dice que su mayor deseo es que se le aparezca la virgen, lo que deja a Luciano admirado. Además de todo, ahora la rica señora viene con sus pretensiones sublimes. ¿No le bastaba con tener un Aston Martin y un Jaguar aparcado a la puerta de casa, ni tener diez vestidos para cada estación? Todo fue culpa del profesor Heschel, o de quien fuera… Ir más allá de la promesa sería una herejía. Alfreda dijo que no descansaría mientras no viera a Maria y le hiciera unas cuantas preguntas. Filipe Quinta, el Falsificador, afirma tener la solución. Sin embargo, Bahia, su marido, escuchaba música…

The way in which we cross, one time only, the space of a public swimming pool reminds us of life, from birth until the end.

Aunque Antonio pertenece a una rica familia y José es hijo de la sirvienta, han compartido su infancia bajo la protectora mirada de la criada, atenta a sus mínimos gestos. Con el paso de los años el amor estrechará los lazos entre ellos dos: Antonio se casa con Camila, de la cual José siempre ha estado enamorado, y tiene por amante a la peligrosa Vanessa, socia de José en oscuros e inconfesables negocios. El diablo interviene y se burla cruelmente de la criada que siempre ha intentado en vano conjurar la mala suerte. La trama de estos cuatro destinos entrecruzados pasará por las llamas del infierno.

Manoel de Oliveira's autobiographical documentary about returning to his hometown.

An impossible love. Two young people who love each other. Vera and João can’t find in this life the space, time, or identity to resolve their love story.

Siglo XVII. El padre jesuita Antonio Vieira es obligado a comparecer ante el Tribunal del Santo Oficio en Coimbra. Una serie de intrigas a sus espaldas le han colocado en una situación complicada tras la muerte de su amigo, el rey Joao IV. Ante los jueces hará un repaso de su vida, empezando por su juventud en Brasil y su papel como adalid de los indios nativos.

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.

Joaquim is a romantic supermarket employee. He has only one friend Gaspar, who speaks almost only for cinematic quotes. At leisure, go around town looking for the right woman. But when found, she throws herself from a balcony. Then comes a dance, as in a musical, and an obvious surprise... A movie about beauty and glory that has more love stories.

A look at the life and career of Vasco Santana, one of the most beloved actors of the Portuguese cinema.

Through a conversation with João Bénard da Costa and his ideas about the Portuguese cinema, an interaction between the construction of the documentary and the sights and sounds clips from some movies is established. Despite the difficulties, the films continue to exist and to resist. Is it worth it? What would happen if they disappeared? Each viewer must find their answer. This film aims to be an approach to Portuguese cinema in its hundred years of existence, opening, hopefully, ways for their dissemination and making light for its knowledge.

The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England.

The city during the beginning of cinema. The typical city at the time of the dictatorship. The New Lisbon of the New Cinema. Lisbon after the Revolution. The white city of foreigners. A geographical and moviegoer screenplay of Lisbon through the images of films and testimonies of several filmmakers who filmed in Lisbon.

A blind beggar is robbed of his chest of money. The theft leads to a dramatic situation in the street where he begs every day.

Paulo Rocha catches up with his “beloved subject” in Porto, where he made Douro, Faina Fluvial in 1929, and where today Oliveira reminisces about the figure of his father, his first experience of cinema as an actor, his past as a racing driver, his first technical experiences…

At the end of the nineteenth century, an army force led by Major Mouzinho de Albuquerque, a cavalry officer, imprisoned in Mozambique the great regulative Governor Gungunhana, who had rebelled against Portuguese government and sovereignty

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.

A world of strong colours between documentary and fiction, centered on the life and work of modernist painter Amadeo de Souza Cardoso.

12-year-old Miguel is punished because he has not done his homework properly: he must stay at his aunt's inn for holidays. First bored, then a friendship begins between him and other inn's regular holiday-makers, like maid Luisa or fisherman João. But doctor Fernando's arrival is going to overwhelm the place's peaceful life and to change Miguel's mind.

This visually striking drama is taken from the classic Japanese novel Tales Of Genji by Marasaki Shikibu. Set in modern Portugal, Joao (Luis Miguel Cintra) is a left-wing political leader and ladies man with a bright future. His ex-wife Isabel (Manuela de Freitas) both loves and hates him as Joao plays on her wavering emotional state. He is sent to Italy to retrieve wayward family member Antonia (Caroline Chaniolleau), the beautiful young woman with a terrorist boyfriend. Joao is forced to recognize his feelings as the political and amorous climate changes around him.

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.

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.

Narra la historia de amor del escritor Camilo Castelo Branco por Fanny Owen, una muchacha de origen inglés que, por su parte, se enamora de un compañero, amigo y rival del escritor, José Augusto.

A small group of well-to-do vacationers go on a hiking trip into the woods. Foolishly unprepared to deal with Mother Nature and their situation, they wander around lost for days and weeks, becoming more and more fatigued, hungry, and desperate. A brief encounter with a pair of epicureans on a bridge fails to garner them any of the gluttons' feast due to a language barrier. Eventually their party begins to die, and the survivors ration their meat among them, attaching a religious-type ritual to its dispensation.

A man exiled in Paris makes various trips to Portugal after the Carnation Revolution. Each trip is represented by a woman.

A story about doomed love between two people from different worlds and the impact in their lives.

This is an intriguing avant-garde look at what motivates the leisurely classes in Portugal, for better or worse, by director Manoel de Oliveira. Set in a spacious country home peopled with a wide-ranging cast of characters, the drama begins as the friends of a widow come to console her on the loss of her husband. But at one point, the widow goes upstairs, encounters her husband, and is faced with his accusations about the past. This event and others provide the means of revealing the petty, self-serving, egocentric, and romantic pursuits of the melange of people in the house. - Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi