Paulo Menezes

João is an immaterial girl, refusing to be anything other than what she wants to be, regardless of her age, gender or race. When Tiago looks at her it’s like she’s always a different person. Literally. But when their relationship becomes too real, he will have to confront the prejudices that he doesn’t even know he has, to understand the world that she created for herself.

Beatriz married Henrique on the day of her 21st birthday. Henrique, a naval officer, would spend long periods at sea. Ashore, Beatriz, who learned everything from the verticality of plants, took great care of the roots of their six children. The oldest son, Jacinto (Hyacinth), my father, dreamed he could be a bird. One day, suddenly, Beatriz died. My mom didn’t die suddenly, but she too died when I was 17 years-old. On that day, me and my father met in the loss of our mothers and our relationship was no longer just that of father and daughter.

At 63 years old and almost retired, Joaquim is forced to follow job centre rules so he can collect unemployment benefits. Despite knowing that he will never return to active life, he must go from company to company asking for stamps to attest that he is looking for work. In these trips he reminisces about his life as an immigrant to the U.S., where he worked as a cab driver in New York and witnessed numerous Wall Street crashes.

Tom needs help. His friend tries to help. Tom is scared of blood. Things don’t go as planned.

Tom needs help. His friend tries to help. Tom is scared of blood. Things don’t go as planned.

One of the most far-reaching events in a human life is the birth of your baby. But life with a newborn can be so ordinary and at the same time all-embracing: the wash is drying in the corridor, the bathroom has to be cleaned. In the calm rhythm of the day, 'Ordinary Time' skims past authentic moments like this.

“The whistle man” was a typical character of the portuguese sea-side during the Fascist Portugal. His story has so many versions that he has become a myth: A poor crazy man who lost his baby girl, a professional homeless who lived from the charity of rich families, a pedofile or a summer father Christmas. His whistle announced his arrival and attracted boys and girls or made them run away. Last year I found 30 seconds of footage of this man which until then was just a memory. Is he more real now?

“Campo de Marte” (The Field of Mars) was in the ancient times Rome’s training arena for war. At the outskirts of Lisbon, “Campo” hosts today Europe’s largest military base. In this place military troops train fictional missions, astronomy aficionados observe the stars and a boy plays the piano for the wild deers lurking in the dark.

Adaptation by the director Inês Oliveira from the traditional Portuguese tale «O Sapo e a Rapariga». The laundry room is closed and a young woman (Rita Cabaço) has to learn how to wash clothes by hand with the wise Deolinda (Isabel Ruth), who tells her a strange story of enchantment.

A path for tourists on their way to the Castle of São Jorge, the Pátio Dom Fradique was once a popular courtyard where around sixty families used to live.Today, ruins of their houses are the unique remains.There, the erased memories of the old city history and the frenzy of the new Lisbon give way to a contemporary urban tale.

In the year when cinema was paralyzed in Portugal due to lack of funding, a group of friends embarks on a mysterious expedition to see wolves in their natural habitat, but ends up being trapped in a house without much to do. The night goes by and the expedition’s main goal seems increasingly compromised until the biologist who promised them adventures shows up.

In 1961 the liberation struggles start in Angola against the portuguese colonial power. The African students in Portugal fear for their safety and plan to flee outside the country. With the help of Theology students, French and North-American pastors, the operation code name "Angola" fled over 100 african students abroad towards freedom, amongst them several future leaders of african countries.

It's a summer weekend in a country house near Sintra, in Portugal. Fourteen-year-old Nicolau is spending a couple of days with his older brother Simão and his friends, all of them in their late twenties. Everyone is drawn to the beautiful and quiet Maria do Mar, but Nicolau will see his life the most deeply shaken by her. Between homework and tree-climbing, stories about a deceased philandering grandfather and the origins of the tortellini's shape, a friend in a costume nursing a broken heart and seduction games, Nicolau observes this group of young adults.

In Alhambra, between the mountains and the river, a train runs through the village. Oscar, forty-eight years, has worked for the last twenty-fifth years in the same factory, and finds himself awaiting for the resolution of the court on the application of the insolvency of the factory where he worked. With the suspended production and the unpaid wages, Oscar and his colleagues continue to appear daily to work hoping that they can keep their jobs.

Xampy is a popular character in São Paulo's gay night life and electronic scene. He decides to tell us all about his rocky past, bullying for being feminine and about his time in a South American prison, as well as the fun and friendships he gained.

Located in the Vale do Minho Region, the Comédias do Minho Cultural Association, as a result of the investment and collaboration of five municipalities, Melgaço, Monção, Paredes de Coura, Valença and Vila Nova de Cerveja has the mission of providing Vale do Minho with a cultural project adapted to its socioeconomic reality. The film seeks to reveal the work done by the association's people, including actors, technicians and coordinators and their impact. A point of view on the decentralization and adaptation of theater and other cultural activities in a unique region in the world.

Documentary about the Portuguese cultural association Comédias do Minho.

“There must be a different solution than the one from hell’. Full unadulterated terror (and music). 'The best class always ends with a lesson'. Almost baroque in its ambition and detail, Akerman and Seabra Lopes’ mesmerising short film delves deeply into the hard-wired dread of music lessons. Sewn around Schubert’s steely Opus 1, which is itself based on the no less terrifying legend of Goethe's Erlkönig, their film is a revelation.” International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Paris, March 1939. While the march of the Nazi troops makes itself heard throughout Europe, exiled artists and intellectuals from all over the world still converge in the French capital. Portuguese composer Fernando Lopes-Graça is among them, sharing this cosmopolitan environment, on the verge of rupture. A happy coincidence brings him into the presence of the man he considers his master, the intransigent Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. For Lopes-Graça, the occasion presents itself as a unique opportunity to show Bartók his scores...

A nurse takes care of a patient in her house. Maria do Céu has been a nurse for more than forty years, working at an old Hospital in Lisbon. She was sixteen, when she arrived to Lisbon, coming from a small village in Alentejo. At the Hospital, she reads the file of an old patient who was also her friend. The file is then closed. Maria do Céu returns to her village, where she sings at the people’s house choir.

"Come and see this world end!" - wrote the the priest António Fontes, father of folk medicine and "burning witches" in Vilar de Perdizes, a desperate plea in his precious monograph of the Barroso region. And I (João Botelho) went. Then I saw the people and the land. Haunting on discovery. Heart sank. "God is good but the devil is not so bad!" - We learned from this Community habits and that is great, tough and generous. And I also learned that no fairer place for a demand of life and even the elusive happiness there, I assure you, it is always possible.