Pedro Hestnes

Jorge é um solitário escritor de romances de cordel. À noite olha através das janelas iluminadas as pessoas nas suas casas e pensa que elas, sim, são felizes. Um dia o acaso, pensa ele, leva-o até à casa onde vive Laura com o seu filho André, e através das grandes janelas Jorge descobre a montra de uma vida perfeita. Mas as vidas perfeitas só o são quando vistas de fora. De perto nada é o que parece: o anterior marido de Laura desapareceu misteriosamente e estranhos telefonemas perturbam a imperturbável Laura. Jorge não se assusta, quer protegê-la. Inventa um homem feito à medida de Laura, um homem para ela amar e consegue entrar naquele mundo maravilhoso que julga conhecer.

Humberto hanged himself. Catarina, Paulo and Victor want the company where Humberto used to work for to take responsibility in his death, leading them to kidnappe the company’s director in an act of despair. Who is Humberto? What company is that? In which paths will he take us, after his death? Cinerama is an edgy, enigmatic, but not distant film that brings up genres of cinema as well as other forms of art like dance, theatre and poetry. The film reflects ways of being in life.

Próximo de um neo-realismo onírico, Rio Turvo parte do conto homónimo de Branquinho da Fonseca, onde se acompanha a história de um amor impossível entre um topógrafo anónimo, recém-chegado ao terreno pantanoso onde deverá construir-se um aeroporto – provavelmente, passe o anacronismo ficcional, sublinhando-se o sincronismo histórico, o tão discutido aeroporto da Ota –, e a bela flor do pântano. As intervenções musicais dos operários de construção (os fados de Ricardo Ribeiro e de Manuel João Vieira, as guitarras dos Dead Combo e de José Pracana, a bossa nova do JP Simões e a voz de Teresa Salgueiro) pontuam, socraticamente, esta história de amor e acompanham narrativas paralelas de conspiração e suspeita. O pano de fundo são os medos e uma indiferença trespassante do presente, em que o protagonista tem de decidir se é homem ou macaco, cínico ou cobarde, avançando ao ritmo de um progressivo desprendimento da realidade até um final abrupto, irónico e amargo.

Manuel, um pintor na casa dos quarenta, acaba de deixar o Hospital Psiquiátrico, onde passou os últimos cinco anos internado. Ao sair, volta para a sua casa á beira rio, sob recomendação médica de, para já, não voltar a pintar. Manuel dedica-se então à reconstrução de uma velha barcaça. Helena, uma jovem da aldeia vizinha trava conhecimento com ele, e é rapidamente tomada de fascínio pela sua aura de mistério. Na aldeia os ecos do pintor que enlouquecera ainda se fazem ouvir.

Since 1980 German institutions send teens to the south of Portugal under experimental projects of social rehabilitation. That's how Katrin comes to Alentejo. She will establish a unique relationship with the surrounding environment, a situation exacerbated by the harshness of the landscape and the emptiness of a socially desertified region. Katrin, twith Julia and Pedro, will build a refuge in a no-man's-land...

Ivo and Tomás, two volunteered vagabonds who feed their souls of ways and great winds. From time to time they make a stop, renting their arms, the necessary time to be able to, provisions made, get on the road again. Once, with the sun at its peak and a burning heat, the desert that they are crossing seems to be endless. They run out of water… in the end of the day, without any strength left, they let themselves fall near to a dried bush. Ivo stares at the moon rising, as is saying farewell and whispering verses of a poem of a lawyer they’ve met before. It is then that he sees a far light. They set their way to that house…

A serious young man of free spirit is forced by his surroundings to become rich at all costs. A group of blind children tries to open the eyes of the unbelievers to the Christian faith. Retired nuns who open a brothel, to pay the running costs of the convent. These rather ironic paradoxes turn this fairytale into a philosophical fable.

Um retrato da Revolução dos Cravos, que mudou a história portuguesa na década de 70. A realizadora e actriz Maria de Medeiros faz um retrato pessoal e nostálgico dos episódios mais marcantes do 25 de abril.

Angstel trades in forged paintings, under the guidance of his mother, Milady. Their network extends into other murky affairs, provoking the wrath of a rival gang. Angstel falls in love with Ancetta, a prostitute, and flees with her to the north of Chile. - IFFR

Lúcia is an independent woman who lives alone in Lisbon. Her father commits suicide leaving her a message on phone recorder, revealing a letter he wrote. However Lúcia can't find it in her father's house. On that visit she ends up meeting with her mother, a known political activist with whom she has a distant and tense relationship. In hope of finding the letter, Lúcia leaves to the farm where she grew up, on an isolated location. There she reencounters Álvaro, an old childhood companion, who shares a little life time he has left between roses and the piano, and the guardian angel that follows and protects her through nocturnal wanderings.

Este argumento é composto por cinco histórias que se cruzam numa cidade com duas margens. João e Tiago fugiram de casa, escolheram ser nómadas e inventar os seus dias. Catarina e Miguel têm seis anos, são irmãos e filhos de André. Catarina parte o queixo e descobre que se chama Catarina Valente e que não morre porque não quer. André vive num mundo privado, feito de filmes de cowboys, poemas, estados de espírito que o trazem suspenso e o mantêm protegido de um mundo onde os dias são difíceis: as pessoas têm cada vez menos dinheiro e o racismo aumenta. Adriana é uma adolescente, desoladora, fechada num mundo de pensamentos circulares dos quais é o centro.

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...

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.

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.

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

Xavier returns to Lisbon after a military stint, determined to lead a meaningful life, only to find his world closing in on him.

Coming from Fundão to Lisboa where he did conscription service, Matias found that the reality of the big city is not exactly how he remembers

Nogueira, a man in his fifties, is a relic of times long past. While the youngsters at the school where he works as a caretaker still think the world is their oyster, Nogueira knows that, for him, most doors have long closed.

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.

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

AGOSTO é o oposto das chamadas fitas de Verão, como as paixões que lá se contam estão nos antípodas dos amores de praia.

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.

A young woman, working as sales-girl at a shopping center's music shop, wants someone with whom to share her secrets. A distant mother separating from her father, an aunt who emigrated to France, and her pre-adolescent sister, can't do - neither the boyfriend. Such a confident arrives unexpectedly - but then there are three of them, one too much. One leaves, but then another young man arrives, and there are three again. One must go. A sad young adult love story, told in the first person, singular - and ultimately alone, under the rain.

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.