Miguel Coelho

Within the beating heart of Alfama and Mouraria, the hoods meet to tell their story. In a blend of authenticity, roots, traditional music and cause and effect philosophy, they lay it all bare

The summer festivities of a Portuguese village are suffused with sensuality and violence in this enigmatic portrait of a tightly knit family.

As the afternoon light fades, two kids play in the woods by a lake. When one of them disappears, the lake and its inhabitants take hold of the narrative and, when the darkness sets in, build up the walls of a maze that encircles the two kids. While one wanders through the forest searching for his friend, the silhouettes, textures and sounds of the forest slowly exert their mysterious grip.

As the afternoon light fades, two kids play in the woods by a lake. When one of them disappears, the lake and its inhabitants take hold of the narrative and, when the darkness sets in, build up the walls of a maze that encircles the two kids. While one wanders through the forest searching for his friend, the silhouettes, textures and sounds of the forest slowly exert their mysterious grip.

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.

In a world polluted by atomic radiation, five survivors find shelter in an underground bunker. The sudden discovery of a rare and miraculous medicine will become a source of quarrel within the group.

Manel is twenty years old, lives on Avenida Almirante Reis and idealizes love inspired by the relationship of his parents. Out of compassion, he hands over his double mattress to Nicolau and his girlfriend, who returned to Lisbon. Manel is alone with the mattress that he exchanged with his friends and on his way back home when he invades a film set, with a team entirely composed by girls. One of them, Rita, a beautiful production intern who helps with the mattress.