The Night's Advices

"35 years after, the movement of things" follows filmmaker Manuela Serra's return to Lanheses, 35 years after having directed "The Movement of Things" there.

A group of veterans from the Portuguese Colonial War reunites today. Among songs and memories, the past takes over them.

The recollections of a Portuguese teacher in the present will make us follow his father, Manuel, former fighter in our colonial war and constantly tormented with those memories. He'll walk us through the depths of the physical sites that haunt him - from training barracks to the lakes and gardens of his youth and infatuation - and also to his memory's gulf - war and passion combined, entangled, in a battle that questions or howls immemorial existential doubts.

A man, a woman and a car.

The story of a young cinephile, who, coming from Braga, arrives in Lisbon, where he found a peculiar and fleeting job. Between the dark movie theatres, a girl and friends, the portrait of a certain era and of a young man like many, kind of lost, kind of uninterested.

Through the most secret, arid and wild routes, a man approaches a big city. He looks at it from the top of a hill and feels like a stranger, having left years ago. He seems to recognize the surrounding landscape but, at the same time, feels unable to remember this environment that attracts and repels him. Conflicted, he searches for familiar friends, acquaintances, places and a daughter, who reached out to him so long ago. Finally discovering a haven where he feels at home, he leaves again.

Maria arrives in the countryside of Beira in search of Lídia, who had suddenly fled the big city. Lídia has a secret, and Maria discovers in what she sees and the voices she hears, what Juan Marsé reveals in The Spell of Shanghai: “Although we grow up looking to the future, we grow up always looking to the past, in search, perhaps, of the first enchantment.”

Manuel Mozos, the Portuguese director, talks about his films, cinema and Sam Peckinpah.