Avó Luísa
A flight to Lisboa is diverted to Beja due to a snowstorm, forcing several passengers to spend Christmas Eve away from their families.
Judite
Maria da Luz
Maria da Luz is almost blind. She's been waiting for cataract surgery for 3 years. António, an old fisherman, takes care of her, hiding the secret of an old love. Miguel, a mysterious boy, wanders through the city, watching daily for Maria's house. Luís, the mayor, seeks to solve the problem of hundreds of people with cataracts in the Municipality. Ana, Maria's daughter visits her mother. Despite their misfortune, they seek to redeem themselves under the eyes of António and Miguel. Maria da Luz is not alone.
Avó
A school inspector travels to the baron’s fiefdom to write a report on a heathen teacher. Having arrived, he is invited to stay with the baron, who makes predictions about women, horses and politics while the mysterious Idalina serves food and drink. The inspector becomes inextricably entangled in the baron’s world.
Documentary about the life of the lyric singer Natália de Andrade.
A bizarre and tragic ballad of an impossible love between a nameless topographer and Leonor in a swamp soon to be destroyed by the forces of Man. She (Teresa Salgueiro, ethereal voice of Madredeus) is the “swamp-flower”, protégée of a Socratic Director (and his goat Plato). In a world without women, she is kept safe from the temptations of the flesh by her strict and grotesque Aunt. The sound-track entirely played by the workers (fado and bossa nova singers) reveals parallel narratives of suspicion and conspiracy that unfold to the pace of the unconscious leading to a confrontation between Man and River. Inspired by a hypnotic story by Branquinho da Fonseca (1905-1974).
This documentary shows a peculiar vision about theatre in general and O Bando in particular, on the bases of João Brites' directing the showcase of “ENSAIO SOBRE A CEGUEIRA” (essay on blindness), written by José Saramago.
Antónia
In a remote island where mourning was settled, a man decreed that there will never be sex or children anymore... The island gets desolate and he decided to send his daughter, Adriana, to the mainland to form a family by natural methods.
D. Odete
Dawn is breaking into day. Fair day. As in every year. But this is a year of mourning. "It doesn't look right!" Vera says to her sister. And her mother-in-law looks at her and remembers the dead son. Remembrance is a silence between the two of them. Children's voices come from outside. Lucia wants to go to the fair with her uncle and cousin. "You promised!" claims the daughter. Vera consents in letting her go. Lucia waves her hand as the tractor drives away. Chance, once again. An accident. Death, always so close, so alive.
A fairy tale from the computer age: a 15 year-old boy finds a computer, which has the magical power of undoing short periods of his life.
How would you react if you couldn't see? In rehearsing the theatrical adaptation of "Blindness", by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the company "O Bando" made the experience. The actors lived 24 hours blindfolded in an abandoned hospital. How would you react if you could see again?
Albertina
A 14-year-old kid, addicted to videogames, goes with his parents to a shopping mall and separates from them to go to a game store called UTOPYA. He doesn't come back. His parents get in despair, and his father tries everything he can to bring him back.
Believer
Concerns an Irish woman, Cathy (Pauline Cadell), who dearly loves her Portuguese lawyer husband, Pedro (Rui Morisson); however, unbeknownst to her, he engages in one tryst after another. Cathy soon finds herself trying to help a young delinquent get off heroin, while the youth's desperate mother joins a weird religious cult. In other segments, an elderly man is nearly driven mad with grief at the loss of his granddaughter in a train station, while a down-and-out jeweler ushers the young girl to a hotel room.
Noémia
Gloria is set against the backdrop of a rural landscape slowly disappearing in modern Portugal. The small border town of Vila de Santiago, once a booming trade center for illegal trafficking, is about to become a ghost town, as a new motorway is to bypass the city and the railway station is being closed. Its stationmaster, Vincente, is preparing to retire. Many young people have moved out, leaving the children to be brought up by the elderly, including thirteen-year-old Glória and her friend Ivan. Glória's life suddenly changes with the arrival of Vincente's younger brother, Mauro, who has just come out of prison and has some old issues to settle. Mauro begins to charge around the station on his motorbike, while Glória's friendship with Ivan is put to test on account of her attraction to older Mauro.
When her mother dies, 40-year-old Helena now has time for herself after years of taking care of her family. She works at a film production company, dances boisterously, gets drunk. A quiet film about letting go morphs into a coming of middle age story.