Inês de Medeiros

A hundred letters written by Portuguese women during the Salazar dictatorship were found by chance in a second-hand bookshop. By confronting today the women who wrote these letters with the ghosts of the past, and revealing important archive material, Letters to a Dictatorship takes us on an in-depth journey through the obscurantism that dominated Portugal for more than 50 years.

A hundred letters written by Portuguese women during the Salazar dictatorship were found by chance in a second-hand bookshop. By confronting today the women who wrote these letters with the ghosts of the past, and revealing important archive material, Letters to a Dictatorship takes us on an in-depth journey through the obscurantism that dominated Portugal for more than 50 years.

De início tudo era relativamente simples. Eu procurava um rapaz de origem africana, entre os 16 e os 18 anos para incarnar o papel de Alberto no filme que eu acabara de escrever. Como não eram actores, pedi aos candidatos que me contassem uma história à escolha. O que me deram foi um bocado de vida, e fizeram-no com uma tal generosidade e autenticidade que era eu quem estava em causa. Seria eu capaz de reencontrar a mesma força, a mesma emoção?

De início tudo era relativamente simples. Eu procurava um rapaz de origem africana, entre os 16 e os 18 anos para incarnar o papel de Alberto no filme que eu acabara de escrever. Como não eram actores, pedi aos candidatos que me contassem uma história à escolha. O que me deram foi um bocado de vida, e fizeram-no com uma tal generosidade e autenticidade que era eu quem estava em causa. Seria eu capaz de reencontrar a mesma força, a mesma emoção?

An American ornithologist meets a French student on a trip to the Basque Country in 1975.

Ali, an aspiring actor, works in a government-aided butchery, and takes a part in a cheap play, while his father wants him to start working in fruit trade. Ali pursues his long-lived dream of traveling abroad and flies to France with an acting troupe, where he starts living illegally alongside many other Arabs, and starts a life-changing experience that he won't remember fully until he returns to Egypt.

No Estrela de África, um bairro crioulo dos arredores de Lisboa, um bebé de poucos dias irá sobreviver a várias mortes. Tina, a sua jovem mãe, pega-lhe ao colo e abre o gás. Resgatado pelo pai, ele dormirá nas ruas da cidade alimentado pelo leite da caridade alheia. Por duas vezes, quase será vendido, por desespero, por amor, por quase nada. Mas Tina não se esquece: com a ajuda das suas vizinhas do bairro a vingança aproxima-se...

It's September in Lisbon… Elsa’s young daughter leaves with her father, and Teresa, a friend’s friend, comes to stay in her room. One night the two women go out and meet Raul, a vagrant lover of Elsa. A triangle takes form. They finish the night on a boat by the name of Pandora, but in the morning Raul sails away, alone. Elsa and Teresa will start a new life...

Authentically painful study of an ill-matched couple's forlorn attempts to revive their relationship after a two-year break.

Michèle is the new French consul in a South American country. She quickly discovers that the government is, in fact, a dictatorship. Moreover, her seventeen-year-old daughter is involved in the revolution against the regime.

The film tells a story of Mariana, a nurse who leaves Lisbon to accompany an immigrant worker in a comatose sleep on his trip home to Cape Verde. The devoted Portuguese nurse took a journey only to find herself lost in abstract drama.

Lisbon, on a winter day in 1994, between six and fourteen o'clock. A forty-year-old woman despairs in the last eight hours preceding the birth of her first child.

This European drama, set in Paris, follows a brilliant musician as he suddenly forsakes his career, to live and love amongst the common populace. Armand is the violinist who yearns to experience that life and to share his music with everyone, not just the wealthy and the elite. He leaves the glittering world of classical music without a backward glance and takes up residence in the Paris metro where he is surrounded by beggars and tramps. There he meets and becomes friends with Lydia, a metro employee.

When a man's best friend is shot in cold blood by two corrupt policemen, he must track down the only eyewitnesses, who have deported to Mali.

Miguel, um economista bem estabelecido na vida, fica profundamente afetado pela morte do seu pai. Começa a sofrer de alucinações, perde o interesse no trabalho e desliga-se da sua mulher. Entretanto, longe da sua cidade, dois jovens provincianos, Antonio e Cecília, estão apaixonados. O primeiro mata um homem que abusava de Cecília, que por sua vez está grávida. Antonio, apesar de não ser o pai da criança, aceita-o como seu. A família e a comunidade rejeitam Cecília que, por ironia, encontra apoio e auxílio junto à viúva do homem que Antonio matou. João Botelho realizou e escreveu “Aqui na Terra” e tenta estabelecer inesperadas ligações emocionais entre o campo e a cidade, a partir das distintas histórias de dois casais em crise. Botelho, como sempre, domina de forma soberba as atmosferas plásticas de um filme envolvente e tocante, servido por um belo elenco que conta com as participações de Luís Miguel Cintra, Jessica Weiss, Pedro Hestnes e Rita Dias.

Zephyrus is a film-voyage, a fresco about Southern Portugal. A movie dealing metaphorically with the South of Portugal, singling it out as a place where various cultures came together and mix, giving birth to a singular identity, as unique as this movie itself, a mixture of fiction and documentary

This Portuguese movie directed by João Botelho, is part of The Four Elements series. This is the second episode, The Air.

Numa vila alentejana uma rapariga do liceu, Mitó, é a principal suspeita da morte do seu namorado, um alemão da Base Aérea de Beja. Um jornalista e um fotógrafo de um jornal de Lisboa tentam, localmente, colher informações, testemunhos e elementos sobre um caso que está longe de ser simples. Na verdade, cada um tem uma versão muito pessoal dos factos e os diversos pontos de vista revelam-se contraditórios. Os dois jornalistas acabam por ir, inesperadamente, ao encontro de uma história de amor e morte no coração do Alentejo.

A passion between a 42 years old man and a young girl.

Nino, tough but sickly, and his older brother Vicente live in the country with their father. After their father disappears ― we’re never sure why ― murder is suggested. Vicente brings his girlfriend to the house, and a different kind of family is established as the three youngsters grow fiercely protective of each other. But their uncle grows suspicious about the fate of the missing father and forcibly kidnaps Nino, taking him away to the city and leaving Vicente to locate him there.

Lisbon, 1989. A middle-aged poor man, tormented by an illness, lives in a cheap room in a family boarding house, in the old section of the city's waterfront.

Lisbon, 1989. A middle-aged poor man, tormented by an illness, lives in a cheap room in a family boarding house, in the old section of the city's waterfront.

Laura lives in the country with her considerably older husband. When Nuno, her brother who study in Lisbon, pays a visit, he realizes that his sister does not have a happy life. He initiates a friendship with a worker on the farm. The circumstances turn Laura and Nuno against each other... Portrays the repressed sexuality and homosexual desire in a rural setting and elliptically and delicately the small farming community that serves as the backdrop for the impossible relationships pursued by Laura and her brother.

Laura lives in the country with her considerably older husband. When Nuno, her brother who study in Lisbon, pays a visit, he realizes that his sister does not have a happy life. He initiates a friendship with a worker on the farm. The circumstances turn Laura and Nuno against each other... Portrays the repressed sexuality and homosexual desire in a rural setting and elliptically and delicately the small farming community that serves as the backdrop for the impossible relationships pursued by Laura and her brother.

Anna, Joyce, Claude and Lucia are all students under the tutelage of Constance Dumas, a renowned film instructor. Lucia moves in with the other girls. Soon after, she is attacked on the street outside her home and saved by a mysterious strange.

A film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Hard Times" set in a Portuguese industrial town of the 1980s.

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.

Enquanto presta o serviço militar, Henrique, um jovem proveniente de uma família burguesa abastada, começa a receber misteriosos telefonemas por parte de uma mulher que o leva a encontros sem consequências, através dos quais ele é obrigado a descobrir que o amor e a guerra têm muito em comum: as estratégias, as tácticas, os inimigos e os aliados... O jogo começa a revelar-se pouco a pouco, à medida que Henrique se sente preso numa armadilha à qual não sabe resistir: a vingança.

Guinea-Bissau: Portuguese Colony, year: 1973. An Ex-military returns to his hometown. Bringing back with him a vague sense of guilt due to the killing of two men (a soldier and a native) by his sounding of the alarm during one given night.