Joaquim Sapinho

A documentary on one of the most important Portuguese Plastic Artists, with greatest International projection. Shown here are his techniques, themes, and obcessions developed for over two decades, as well as its ramifications into different supports such as Video, Photography, literature, taking the rare oportunity granted by a full retrospective of his work at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, including the works dispersed through International collections.

At the dawn of the modern era, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan leads an expedition under the Spanish crown in search of the first westward route to the Spice Islands. He embarks on a perilous journey across the uncharted Pacific, where his fleet faces starvation, mutiny, and the psychological toll of endless seas. Upon reaching the shores of Cebu, Magellan is pulled into a fatal conflict with the natives by his drive to spread Catholicism, culminating in his tragic doom.

The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses.

Island of Tahiti. French government official De Roller is a calculating man with impeccable manners, capable of dealing with both high society and the locals he frequents in shady joints.

Jérémie returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. He decides to stay for a few days with Martine, the man's widow. A mysterious disappearance, a threatening neighbor and a priest with strange intentions make Jérémie's short stay in the village take an unexpected turn.

I went to Bosnia after war ended, in 1996, when the Danton Peace Accord was being implemented. Bosnia had been divided in two entities, which separated the two main opposing forces of the conflict; the Serb Bosnians and the Muslim Bosnians. Two years later, in 1998, I returned to Bosnia... This movie is a diary of the two voyages, in which I deal with the memories of the war, the death and destruction and with the victim’s struggle who don’t know how to return home.

On the French Riviera, two gangs of kids compete in the perilous game of cliff jumping. Géo, barely five years old, discovers over the course of a summer a world where friendship blends with rivalry, and where the first stirrings of the heart emerge against the dazzling Mediterranean landscape.

1774, shortly before the French Revolution, somewhere between Potsdam and Berlin. Madame de Dumeval, the Duke de Tesis and the Duke de Wand, libertines expelled from the puritanical court of Louis XVI, seek the support of the legendary Duc de Walchen, German seducer and freethinker, lonely in a country where hypocrisy and false virtue reign. Their mission is to export libertinage, a philosophy of enlightenment founded on the rejection of moral boundaries and authorities, but moreover to find a safe place to pursue their errant games, where the quest for pleasure no longer obeys laws other than those dictated by unfulfilled desires.

Dealing with a series of increasingly absurd situations and relationships, recently separated yoga instructors Gustavo and Vanesa are finding it difficult to live apart. Their challenges include meddling mothers, amnesiac students, and burgeoning romances. Step by step, they find their way back to the practice.

Documentary about Japanese film director Shohei Imamura.

August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.

The film is set in Lisbon, and tells the story of a day in the life of Rita and Paulo, a Portuguese young couple of the 90's. The fast changing city around them makes them wish to break with all traditions and live the day the get married (only civil marriage) like it is an ordinary day.

One of the Philippines' top investigators, Lieutenant Hermes Papauran, faces a deep moral crossroads. As a firsthand witness of the murderous anti-drug campaign conducted by his force, his anxiety and guilt triggers a severe skin disease, and his healing process is fraught by his dark past.

As thousands in Lisbon march against austerity measures, jobless and lonely Susana joins the protest but can't escape from her solitude. Meanwhile, listless Jorge lives with his mom and has insomnia. Susana and Jorge turn on their computers at night and let their secret lives unfold.

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.

Freely based on Gide ('Paludes') and Hawthorne ('Wakefield'), this is a film about a writer who never wrote anything and who blows at nightfall the breath of frost. The poem by Carlos Queiroz to which the above sentences belong is not cited in 'O som da Terra a Tremer', but the atmosphere is that, between written letters never received. Fiction within fiction, stories within stories, like those Chinese boxes in which there is always one inside another. Or the two margins of the same river, always being lateral.

A young woman and her son runaway from their hometown to escape civil war. Nothing is left from the world they knew and the only thing they have is each other.

Catalan director Albert Serra’s follow-up to his magisterial The Death of Louis XIV is another forensic documentation of the Sun King’s final breaths. Here, however, Versailles is replaced with the glow of the gallery.

The city during the beginning of cinema. The typical city at the time of the dictatorship. The New Lisbon of the New Cinema. Lisbon after the Revolution. The white city of foreigners. A geographical and moviegoer screenplay of Lisbon through the images of films and testimonies of several filmmakers who filmed in Lisbon.

Faced with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody murders and brazen lies, ethically conflicted police lieutenant Hermes Papauran continues his struggle to find a resolution to a 15-year-old case around a volcanic ash-laden landscape and an impenetrable lake.

João Pedro Rodrigues' gradutation short film.

The film tells the story of a sister and a brother, Inês and Rafael. Since the divorce of their parents, their family never saw Rafael again. Inês runs away from home looking for him when she is told he is back at the Guincho Beach and surfing again. Rafael is an ex-surf champion who everyday gets himself inside the most dangerous waves to test the limits of his life. When the two brothers meet, Guincho makes them come together in a promise of paradise on earth, as it was the last place where their family lived together and in happiness. But Inês is surprised one day when she finds her brother looking fixedly to the Serra de Sintra mountain range, where the Convent of the Capuchos, which once was his refuge, is. She fears having brought him back the memories of the separation of their parents. Rafael is in a crisis of faith. When one day he disappears, Inês knows he went back to the convent, and she starts doing what she can to bring him back to her.

Through a conversation with João Bénard da Costa and his ideas about the Portuguese cinema, an interaction between the construction of the documentary and the sights and sounds clips from some movies is established. Despite the difficulties, the films continue to exist and to resist. Is it worth it? What would happen if they disappeared? Each viewer must find their answer. This film aims to be an approach to Portuguese cinema in its hundred years of existence, opening, hopefully, ways for their dissemination and making light for its knowledge.