The Keeper

Penumbria was founded two hundred years ago, in a distant istmus - a place of arid soils, angry seas and violent weather. The city was due its name to the almost permanent shadows and cloudiness. One day, its inhabitants decided to leave, offering Penumbria to time. This is the story of an uninhabitable place.

Inspired by popular cult, O COVEIRO is part light part darkness, a bedtime story and almost a nightmare. A child is born and his parents die of fright just to see him. André Gil Mata revisits the traditional Portuguese tale, in a fantastic movie where heads bounce, but you hear a song.

Téo, a lunar teenager, meets the new parish priest of his rural village, who has just arrived from Mozambique. As the two grow closer, they develop a spiritual bond steeped in attraction.

The last habitants of a village refuse to let themselves sink into oblivion.

An actress goes to Azores to take part in the theatrical tour of The Tempest and on her arrival she finds no one from the company, there is not even a theatre. After meeting Ariel, the actress discovers that the play has already started, the whole island is a theatre and its inhabitants are characters.

A typical day in the life of a lonely man who works in an unsuccessful tavern located in the historical center of Guimarães, an old town in Portugal. During the day, the man spends his time coming up with new menu items for his tavern, while at night he gets ready to meet someone special.

There is a village in the mountain and a house in the village, where Ema repeats gestures and tasks: she takes care of her grandmother, walks, reads, waits. Until one day the cycle breaks: what happened in the mountain house?

A school inspector travels to the baron’s fiefdom to write a report on a heathen teacher. Having arrived, he is invited to stay with the baron, who makes predictions about women, horses and politics while the mysterious Idalina serves food and drink. The inspector becomes inextricably entangled in the baron’s world.

A worker in a big city who feels uncomfortable around women meets a sex worker, and in an attempt to overcome his hesitations, he discovers his sexuality.

Azarias is a young orphan shepherd, keeper of a herd of oxen, where the ox Mabata Bata stands out. The oxen will be the basis of the "lobolo" payment, a traditional dowry that his uncle Raul must pay for his own marriage. Azarias’ dream is to be a normal child, to go to school, goals that are supported by his grandmother. One day, when Azariah is in the pasture, Mabata Bata steps into a mine - the result of the civil war in the country - and explodes. The young man fears his uncle's reprisals and flees to the forest, taking with him the remaining oxen. The grandmother and uncle leave in their quest to rescue him and persuade him to return.

Ribeira Quente is a fishing village in S. Miguel Island in the Azores facing the last days of a fishing activity as they know it.

Who is Sycorax? The first character in Shakespeare's "Tempest" to set foot on the island. The problem is that she has no voice. She is barely mentioned by Prospero as a crooked, old, wicked witch who vilely locked Ariel, the spirit of the air, in a tree. But why would she do that? Here, we wouldn't believe Prospero so much.

Oscar is a child germinating in its parent’s garden. Its body is developping underground. Nobody knows its biological sex but he wants to be a boy. One day, Oscar gets out of the ground and discovers his female body. After this painful discovery, is his desired identity finally going to be accepted?

Nora comes out of prison. She only has one thing in mind: finding a youg neo-punk artist she admires, Léa. Mirror of one another, these two soulmates will get to know each other and rebuild their lives together.

A ghostly meeting with Luís de Camões, the one-eyed adventurer, widely considered Portugal’s greatest poet. Luís de Camões is considered Portugal’s national poet, an equivalent to England’s Shakespeare or Spain’s Cervantes. João Lopes’s film takes us on an otherworldly journey to Camões’s five-hundred-year-old epic Os Lusíadas, which he composed in Macau whilst he was stationed in the colony.