Luca Alverdi

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

The story of the adventures, in the twilight of the eighteenth century, of a singular couple formed by a little orphan with mysterious origins and his young Italian nurse of a similarly uncertain birth. They lead us in their wake, from Rome to Paris, from Lisbon to London, from Parma to Venice. Always followed in the shadows, for obscure reasons, by a suspicious-looking Calabrian and a troubling cardinal, they make us explore the dark intrigues of the Vatican, the pangs of a fatal passion, a gruesome duel, banter at the court of Versailles and the convulsions of the French Revolution.

The Central Prison of Porto Alegre was considered the worst in Brazil by a commission of inquiry of the Chamber of Deputies in 2008. Now, the place opens its doors to expose the poorly maintained structure and the life of penitentiaries in unhealthy conditions. Prison officials, detainees, and relatives of prisoners tell how their daily lives are in jail and propose a reflection on the condition of the Brazilian penitentiary system.

The Central Prison of Porto Alegre was considered the worst in Brazil by a commission of inquiry of the Chamber of Deputies in 2008. Now, the place opens its doors to expose the poorly maintained structure and the life of penitentiaries in unhealthy conditions. Prison officials, detainees, and relatives of prisoners tell how their daily lives are in jail and propose a reflection on the condition of the Brazilian penitentiary system.

Two brothers return to Chile after years in Iraq.

How happy and proud they are those two ladies back in Oporto! Thanks to them, their bright nephew can study medicine in Lisbon and may already have become a doctor. Little do they know, not only Vasco wastes all his time drinking, dancing and picking up girls but he has just failed his final exam! And in that same day, he receives an email from the two aunts announcing their visit to Lisbon! Will he be able to make them believe he is such a good student as they think?

Using texts and landscapes belonging to Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles and to a life of work dedicated to landscape architecture, João Mário Grilo composes this poetic documentary about the evocative power of nature and man.

Commander Vasco Moscoso de Aragão entertains the small town of Periperi with the stories of his many adventures travelling around the world as a captain of the merchant navy. Stubborn Chico Pacheco is the only one in town who doesn't believe his tales.

“The artist, in his movement towards the ideal, upsets the stability of any one society. Society aspires to achieve stability; the artist aims for infinity. That is the artist’s responsibility and the spiritual sacrifice demanded of him.” Rui Chafes, O Perfume das Buganvílias, 2012 (19).

Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal.

Indefatigable worker and in multiple artistic fronts, the architect Raul Lino (1879-1974) left us a fundamental work for the understanding of the Portuguese ways of being and inhabiting. The film approaches that legacy starting from texts published by the architect, which place the problematic of the House in a much wider context than that placed by the problems of construction itself. Imagined and drawn for people, being so mirrors of their personalities, tastes and memoires, Houses are the meeting-point between Man, Art and Nature. Therefore, the tremendous responsibility of Architecture: of those who make it and those who uses it.

Two amateur thieves are hired to steal an extremely valuable Van Gogh painting from the abandoned farm of an Argentinian countess.

Short film based on the story of feature-length film "Estômago"

In a dog-eat-dog world, Raimundo Nonato has found an alternative way to move ahead: he cooks. No matter what social strata this deceptively innocent young man inhabits, he hones his skills and sharpens his knives—and then he falls in love. Jorge's nimble comic fable provides a smartly constructed gastronomic allegory for ambition and survival.