Ashes and Embers

Ashes and Embers

2015 · 21 min · ★ 4.8 · Drama

Certainly an outstanding case of beauty and mystery, this short film by Mozos creates a strange alloy of literature and cinema, and not in the way one discipline is a vampire for the other, but rather as if they were the different faces of the same coin, drawn to coexist and repel each other. As if every film belonged to a lonely species, Ashes and Embers shows a unique arrogance as it trembles, somewhat defenseless, with no certainty that the folds of fiction constitute any kind of survival guarantee for such strange objects. Memory and ghosts are two words that are easily said, but in this singular and very refined film they seem destined to become the ultimate goal of cinema, and its most endurable desire.

Directed by Manuel Mozos · Written by Luís Lopes

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

Cast

Make it a double feature

2h 33m together

Ashes and Embers

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One

Both from Manuel Mozos.

More from Manuel MozosSee all →

A Few Things Happening by a River

A Few Things Happening by a River · 2026

A Few Things Happening by a River

MovieDramaComedy

A group of teenagers floats down the river, pretending to be dead for social media. One of them drifts away.

José Cardoso Pires - Diário de Bordo

José Cardoso Pires - Diário de Bordo · 1998

José Cardoso Pires - Diário de Bordo

MovieDocumentary

A documentary about the life and work of José Cardoso Pires. The information was gathered through a series of interviews made by the journalist Clara Ferreira Alves during autumn and winter of 1997 and also by people who were close to him.

O Miradouro da Lua

O Miradouro da Lua · 1993

O Miradouro da Lua

A young theater student receives an invitation from his unknown father to go to Angola with him. On the trip, he meets an Angolan student who returns to his country. When he goes to his father's address, he has a big surprise and his life will change ...

Lovely Child

Lovely Child · 1990

MovieCrimeDrama

Maria is a sweet child. She hasn’t father and doesn’t like her mother. She has a boyfriend, A bandit who would like to change his class.

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One · 2015

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One

Scheherazade narrates three more tales, supposedly selected from the 470th, 484th and 497th nights of her ordeal: “It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a Judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence. A runaway murderer will wander through the land for over forty days and will teletransport himself to escape the Guard while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad!

Xavier

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

Bruno Aleixo's Film

Bruno Aleixo's Film · 2020

Bruno Aleixo's Film

MovieComedyAnimation

Bruno Aleixo was invited to write a biopic about his own life. Lacking ideas, he decided to ask his closest friends for inspiration. Reunited in a cafe, each of his friends suggests a different idea, more or less biographical.

Step by Step

Step by Step · 1990

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.

The Portuguese Nun

The Portuguese Nun · 2009

The Portuguese Nun

A young French actress in Lisbon to shoot a movie is intrigued by a nun she sees kneeling in the chapel where she is filming.

Christmas Inventory

Christmas Inventory · 2000

Christmas Inventory

MovieDramaComedy

A family gathers to celebrate Christmas.

Ruins

MovieDocumentary

Fragments of spaces, buildings and structures, memories and remains of past eras, places of work or leisure now inhabited by our memories alone, or really forgotten. Dead things or living proof of time, natural elements, and human predators themselves.

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal · 2018

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal, 1927. The writer and journalist Fernando Pessoa accepts from his boss the commission to create an advertising slogan for the drink Coca-Louca; but conservative government authorities consider the new drink as revolutionary as it is diabolical.

A Woman's Revenge

A Woman's Revenge · 2012

A Woman's Revenge

Roberto is one of those men to whom simulation has become the greatest art. He is an unmoved, inscrutable, mysterious man. But the truth is that Robert feels an intimate, deep tedium. The boredom of those who have already exhausted all the pleasures of life. The only thing still surprising him is the fact that nothing surprises him anymore. One evening he has an overwhelming encounter with a woman. For his own bewilderment, he discovers the sublime horrors in which the woman has sank.

The Face You Deserve

The Face You Deserve · 2005

The Face You Deserve

MovieComedyFantasy

Francisco, behave! I Know it's your birthday, you are thirty now, it's carnival, you've dressed as a cowboy for the school party and you are surrounded by kids you hate. But that's no reason to be so annoying... Francisco, repeat after me: "Up to your 30s you have the face God has given you. After that, you get the face you deserve".

The Heart's Root

The Heart's Root · 2000

The Heart's Root

Set in the Lisbon during the festivities of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lovers and the old town. The story is about Cato, a nationalist politician who is charismatic and unscrupulous. He obsessively pursues Silvia, a mystical and mysterious young transvestite whom he meets at the festival. When Silvia runs into Vicente, a policeman who arrests transvestites and threatens them, Silvia must look towards blackmail to save herself. Compromising photos of Cato start to emerge among opposition parties and he must do all in his power to save his political career.

The Mountains of the Moon

The Mountains of the Moon · 1987

The Mountains of the Moon

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.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter