Contos Fantásticos

The film sought to portray a relatively unknown and isolated rural world and, through a highly politicized discourse, affirmed the genuineness of “folk culture.” Representative of the new documentary film movement that developed in Portugal after the revolution, the movie encouraged the local retrieval of the Caretos tradition. A ritual that seemed to be doomed by the conjoined impact of emigration, the colonial war and the crisis of agriculture was thus brought back to life. - Paulo Raposo

After completing his military service in the Angolan War of Independence, Adelino goes back to the Portuguese fishing village he calls home, only to find that the woman he loves has married his brother. Overcome by bitterness, he sets off to find work in the countryside where he meets Albertina, a free-spirited young woman who challenges him to change his life.

“A Princesinha das Rosas” is about Naíde, a girl born from the union between a fisherman and a mermaid, adopted by monarchs of a country with no heirs, but to whom the call of the waters will inevitably attract.

Short film on the creation of an agricultural cooperative in the village of Sever do Vouga.

The rise and fall of a revolutionary cooperative movement established in a large private farm in Ribatejo, Portugal, from March to December 1975 (most part of the land occupations occurred in Alentejo, promoted by the communist party). In direct speech, sometimes to the camera, sometimes among themselves, the uneducated rural workers expose their misery, their suffering, their hopes, and ultimately their despair - when a socialist government orders the restitution of the land to their primitive owners, and these transform the land into a hunting reserve.

Filmed just before the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Dark portrait of a group of friends who used to be colleagues at the University in 1962. Ten years later, they have lost all their ideals. With Lisbon on the background they discuss politics, love, culture; each of them has reached a deadlock. The camera remains still while it registers the dissolution of their dreams.

A representation of fiction and documentary about the museum of Óbidos, Portugal.

O Visconde is based on the same Álvaro do Carvalhal short story as Manoel de Oliveira's The Cannibals.

A Noite de Walpurgis is a fantastic tale by Hugo Rocha, admittedly inspired by Goethe's Faust. The narrator-protagonist reveals a story told to him by a third person. Here the third person is an old peasant woman that the protagonist finds in a walk through the mountains, and that tells a story that in turn would have been told to her by the grandmother.

Documentary about the life and work of the painter Dominguez Alvarez, interspersed with fictionalized staging of some moments of the life of the artist.

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.

Biographical program on Camilo Pessanha, a poet associated with the movement of symbolism in the Portuguese language, led by Danilo Barreiros, writer and researcher, highlighting his stay in Macao and the influence that Chinese culture and art had on his work.

Short film made alongside Máscaras (1976).

A biographical program about Almeida Garrett, poet and playwright, from a historical perspective, highlighting his involvement with liberalism, political career and his role as the driving force of the theater in Portugal.

Program of biographical character, about Camilo Castelo Branco. Poetically, it recreates the passage of the melancholy presence of the writer, lonely by the land, while an old storyteller shares the biography of the renowned author for simple people of a humble settlement.

A fiction from the series "Contos Tradições Portugueses", based on a poem by Alexandre O'Neil, telling the story of a fisherman tired of the sea, who departs to conquer a new life on land.