Laura Soveral

The Lovebirds

THE LOVEBIRDS intertwines six stories about love, friendship and survival. The film stars an international cast of American and Portuguese actors who create a colorful mix of off-beat characters that lead us through a complex labyrinth of emotions. Set in the old Romanesque city of Lisbon during the course of one night where love is the art of survival. Written by Anonymous

Tabu

Lisbon, Portugal, 2010. Pilar, a pious woman devoted to social causes, maintains a peculiar relationship with her neighbor Aurora, a temperamental old woman obsessed with gambling who lives tormented by a mysterious past.

Off Season

The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin’s family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site’s empty halls and ballrooms.

Alta Velocidade

An overview of the assemblage and production of motor vehicles in Portugal, including the local representatives of Mercedes, Morris, and Massey-Ferguson, and subsidiary industries for car parts.

O Dia do Regicídio

To Catch a King

Robert Wagner plays an American who owns a Lisbon nightclub and Teri Garr is a slightly dippy chanteuse who has stumbled across a Nazi plot to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, living at the time (1942) in Portugal.

Obsessive Rhythms

On the night of New Year's Eve, a small group penetrates into the room of an old hotel in ruins. Carmine, the oldest of the group, poses a challenge to one of the men, Furio: he has 4 months to restore the hotel and inaugurate it with great pomp. Aware of the difficulties but anxious to prove the point, Furio accepts encouraged by his wife Margo who believes that this assignment will allow the couple to rediscover the lost momentum.

The Divine Comedy

In a mental institution the patients see themselves as people like Jesus, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Adam, Eve, Sonia, Raskolnikov, Aliosha e Ivan Karamasov, a Philosopher, a Profet, Santa Teresa d'Avila, reciting the Divine Comedy.

The Lovebirds

THE LOVEBIRDS intertwines six stories about love, friendship and survival. The film stars an international cast of American and Portuguese actors who create a colorful mix of off-beat characters that lead us through a complex labyrinth of emotions. Set in the old Romanesque city of Lisbon during the course of one night where love is the art of survival. Written by Anonymous

Tabu

Lisbon, Portugal, 2010. Pilar, a pious woman devoted to social causes, maintains a peculiar relationship with her neighbor Aurora, a temperamental old woman obsessed with gambling who lives tormented by a mysterious past.

Off Season

The formerly great Swiss hotel which Valentin’s family owned when he was a boy has been emptied and is about to be torn down. He revisits the magical site’s empty halls and ballrooms.

Alta Velocidade

An overview of the assemblage and production of motor vehicles in Portugal, including the local representatives of Mercedes, Morris, and Massey-Ferguson, and subsidiary industries for car parts.

O Dia do Regicídio

To Catch a King

Robert Wagner plays an American who owns a Lisbon nightclub and Teri Garr is a slightly dippy chanteuse who has stumbled across a Nazi plot to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, living at the time (1942) in Portugal.

Obsessive Rhythms

On the night of New Year's Eve, a small group penetrates into the room of an old hotel in ruins. Carmine, the oldest of the group, poses a challenge to one of the men, Furio: he has 4 months to restore the hotel and inaugurate it with great pomp. Aware of the difficulties but anxious to prove the point, Furio accepts encouraged by his wife Margo who believes that this assignment will allow the couple to rediscover the lost momentum.

The Divine Comedy

In a mental institution the patients see themselves as people like Jesus, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Adam, Eve, Sonia, Raskolnikov, Aliosha e Ivan Karamasov, a Philosopher, a Profet, Santa Teresa d'Avila, reciting the Divine Comedy.

This Night

Werner Schroeter directed this dark and surreal tale of a man determined to save a lost lover from a grim fate at the hands of a violent mob. The city of Santa Maria is falling into chaos as an armed military faction is poised to take power in a coup d'etat. Ossorio used to call Santa Maria home, and he has returned in its darkest hour to find the woman he loves, hoping to rescue her from the violence that is lurks around the corner. As Ossorio searches for his love, he meets Victoria in a shabby hotel, who in turn introduces him to her father Barcala, who for the right price is willing to take Ossorio and another passenger away on his boat. While Ossorio is willing to pay Barcala what he wants, can he find the mysterious woman before the ship sets sail?

The Jew

The story of Brazilian Antônio José da Silva, a jewish poet, playwright and lawyer living in the 18th Century Lisbon, who managed to avoid Inquisition by converting himself to Catholicism, after being tortured. But his fierce criticism of Portugal's élite led him to persecution and torture, becoming kind of a scapegoat.

Lent

David has a wife and young daughter. In a few days he will be moving abroad with his family. The death of his grandfather obliges him to return to the village of his birth and a family he hasn’t seen in years. There he meets his cousin's wife Ana, who intrigues him, and this trip, which should have ended with the funeral, turns into a long stay.

Abraham's Valley

Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.

The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family

The tragedy and comedy in Carlos' life begins, grows and ends like the tragedy and comedy of Portugal. In the company of his close friend, João da Ega, allegedly a brilliant writer, Carlos, with his idle existence as an aristocratic doctor, spends his time to enjoying friends and lovers. Until he falls in love. She is a new character in this revolutionary novel. It's a vertiginous passion that goes beyond that past gloominess to reach a new and darker abyss, incest.

Two Brothers, My Sister

This dark and intense drama follows the slow and painful destruction of a young, passive woman as she watches her family fall apart. Maria is the shy and dutiful daughter upon whose shoulders the family traumas have fallen. In addition to a regular job she cooks, cleans, and studies. Her parents offer no assistance as her father is blind, with a tendency towards violence when drinking. His wife, the focus of his violence is terribly unhappy. After a particularly brutal beating, Maria's brothers rise up against the father and end up leaving the home. It is up to Maria to try to bring the factions together. Maria's pressures increase after she calmly stabs her boss during an attempted rape, and then copes with her mother's suicide.

Lourdes

The young, sickly girl Bernadette comes from a poverty-stricken family. When the Virgin Mary appears to her in a cavern near Lourdes, no one takes the girl seriously, even when she digs up a wellspring at the Virgin's instructions The local authorities even try to hush up the entire incident. In vain, however, because when Empress Eugénie requests water from the spring for her sickly son, they are forced to acquiesce. And even the local priest is finally convinced. While taking his tuberculosis-stricken fiancé Claire to a sanatorium, the young doctor Henri Guillaumet meets Bernadette. The water from Lourdes' spring heals Claire's disease overnight, but the scientist in Henri doubts the miracle and wants to expose Bernadette as a liar. It is not until Henri again meets Bernadette, who has in the meantime become a nun and works as a nurse, that he finds a way to balance belief and modern science. And his love for Claire is strengthened as well.

O Cônsul de Bordéus

This is the story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a man of conviction who saved 30,000 lives during WWII, in June 1940. Among them were10,000 Jews. As the Portuguese General Consul stationed in Bordeaux, France, he issued 30,000 visas for safe passage to Portugal. He defied the direct orders of his government and exhibited courage, moral rectitude, unselfishness, and self-sacrifice by issuing visas to all refugees regardless of nationality, race, religion or political opinions.This narrative film expresses his heroic actions towards humanity, which will perpetuate his legacy of justice for a new generation. In 1966, Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations. He is considered to have achieved the largest single rescue operation of World War II.

Francisca

The life of a young man, son of an English officer who lets himself become a prisoner of love resulting in fatalism and disgrace.

The Fatalist

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese countryside to an unspecified destination, the traveling pair embark on a series of highly philosophical discussions. Flowing with tales of his life in the military and previous sexual escapades, Tiago trades a series of tales with his rapt passenger, including the story of a vengeful spurned lover who plots revenge on the nobleman who rejected her by transforming a prostitute into a society lady and convincing him to marry the tainted bride.

Disquiet

Lisbon, today. In a room of a house at Douradores Street, a man invents dreams and theorizes about them. The essence of the dreams itself becomes physical, palpable, visible. The text itself materializes in its musicality. And, in front of our eyes, this music can be felt with the ears, brain and heart. It spreads itself in the street where the man lives, in the city that he loves above all and over the entire world.

The Seventh Letter

Some time ago Gerardo knew another man of the same age called Berardo. When he said the name, Berardo expressed his oppinion violently, saying that the «G» was owed him and that Gerardo, since he owned it had somehow stolen something from him. Berardo then tries to get something back which soon goes beyond a baptismal name. Gerardo whitnesses this strange spectacle of himself as a place where, after Berardo, other people try to get something back, something that escapes them about themselves. Three women - Adália, Miranda and Virgínia - are whitnesses to this game

O Delfim

A wealthy landowner, "The Dauphin," enjoys a decadent life of hunting, drinking, and womanizing. He oversees his estate, the Laguna, with his barren wife, his one-armed manservant, and his treasured guard dog. When a sportsman (the film’s narrator) comes to the estate for his annual duck-hunting excursion, he discovers the body of the landowner’s wife floating in the lagoon and the manservant dead on his master’s bed. The Dauphin and his dog are nowhere to be found except for the mysterious barking sounds heard over the lagoon.

Here on Earth

Miguel (Luis Miguel Cintra) is lucky that his income will only level off if he neglects his business as a financier, and his wife and family will be well supported. Why? Because he has begun hearing noises that no one else hears, noises that bother him a great deal, and that make it impossible for him to bear human society. His wife (Jessica Weiss) is thoroughly put out by this radically changed behavior in her formerly good husband, but though she considers leaving him, she stays by his side. Deep in the mountains, Cecelia (Rita Dias), a devout, pure young cowherd, has been brutally raped by an old man. Her boyfriend (Pedro Hestnes) has killed the rapist, and fled the area. As a result of the rape, Cecelia is pregnant. One day, while driving in the mountains, Miguel gives Cecelia's boyfriend a ride. The two of them chance upon her sitting amid the rocks with her infant baby.

Oxalá

A man exiled in Paris makes various trips to Portugal after the Carnation Revolution. Each trip is represented by a woman.

Benedict Ironbreaker: The Red Taxis

At first sight, 10-year-old Benoît Brisefer, seems like any other little boy his age. However, Benoît is endowed with amazing force. All the bandits who cross his path learn this to their own cost. But, unfortunately, no one is perfect... As soon as he catches a cold, Benoît loses his extraordinary physical abilities. Hence he never takes off the woollen scarf wrapped around his neck. Brave and very determined, he doesn't hesitate a second to take action to defend his friends. So, when Poilonez - a well known crook - and his gang decide to focus on Mr. Dussiflard, his taxi driver friend, Benoît does all that he can to thwart his plans.

Chiquititas

O Casarão

Duas Vidas

Passerelle

The soap opera tells the story of two families: Cardoso and Guimarães whose bosses are, one of them, bank manager and the other owner of a textile factory, linked to the world of fashion.

Tempo de Viver

Fátima and Laurinda are mother and daughter and the only thing they have in common is their blood ties. While Fátima suffers a series of misfortunes because of her daughter, Laurinda seeks to ascend socially at any cost through a millionaire marriage with the Martins de Mello heir. Meanwhile, Raquel, the widow of Fatima's brother, returns to Portugal to confront the Martins de Mello family, whom she judges guilty of her husband's death in the 9/11. Parallel to intrigues, rivalries, secrets, blackmail and betrayals, the arrival of a great mystery haunts everyone's lives forever: The enigmatic Tubarão.

Old Friends

Freedom is a state of mind... Carlos, José and Matias are three old friends who have known each other since childhood. José lives with his daughter, his son in law and his nine-year-old grandson Pedro. Being a grandfather is his only true source of happiness. Carlos is retired and spends most of his days tinkering. Matias, on the other hand, is a widower and lives alone and abandoned, as his son is living abroad. Each of them has a strong and contentious character of their own, but they are all joined by a deep friendship. When José is sent to a retirement home, Carlos and Matias set a plan to bust him out. They sneak into the retirement home and take him away from that depressing environment in which he was discarded. They know that they can’t come back home, so they decide to spend a while in Matias’ house up north. But, in the middle of their escape, they find José’s grandson snuck in there. Pedro doesn't want to leave his grandpa and insists on accompanying them in their journey.

Ricardina e Marta

Esquadra de Polícia

Direct Flight

Life at 500 mph... Patrícia, Marta, Yara and Weza are flight attendants who share a close friendship travelling between Portugal and Luanda. Filled with humour, strength and hope, these four friends have each other’s back unconditionally, in their highs and lows. As they’re hitting 30, new concerns come up, which they put off, such as marriage, motherhood and their own careers. When confronted with their first big disappointments in their adult lives, they’ll start to question the way they saw their future play out up until then... And the men in their lives as well... Their odd work hours and the distance that separates them leave little room for them getting together so, when their days off match and their flight schedule permitting, they get together and up to speed with each other. When everything in their lives seems to be decided for them, they’ll end up realizing that each day can turn into a new start after all.

Odisseia

A story developed in two different narratives which are interlinked. On the first one, the two friends Bruno Nogueira and Gonçalo Waddington (playing themselves) set out on a caravan trip through Portugal with the desire to escape from their daily lives and find a solution for their personal struggles. On the second one, there's the fictionalized making-off of the miniseries itself.

Maternidade

O Jogo

O Dia do Regicídio

Ideias com História

O Espírito da Lei

Já Está

Regresso a Sizalinda

Angústia para o jantar

Portugal Hoje - 4