A typesetter is an amateur stage director, and his niece and an employee are stage actors. When they have an opportunity to go professional, differences arise between the two men. Read More »
Tag Archives: Portugal
A Vizinha do Lado / The Next Door Neighbor (1945) António Lopes Ribeiro, Silvestre Alegrim, Carlos Alves, Emilia D’Oliveira, Comedy
The story of how the conflicting relationship of Eduardo and vaudeville actress Isabel is affected by the passion he feels for their neighbor, Mariana, a young overprotected, and the unexpected visit of his uncle Plácido, a moral teacher.
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A Filha / My Baby (2003) Solveig Nordlund, Nuno Melo, Joana Bárcia, Margarida Marinho, Drama, Horror, Thriller
Ricardo Monteiro is a successful television producer specialising in reality shows. He is 45 years old and he has just received an award for the most popular television show of the year, when he receives an ultimatum from his 18-year-old daughter Leonor. Read More »
Manhã Submersa / Morning Undersea (1980) Lauro António, Eunice Muñoz, Vergílio Ferreira, Canto e Castro, Drama
Estefãnia is an old, rich, strict catholic woman, and when she sets her eyes on a couple of servants who have no means to bring up properly their youngest son, António, she decides to move her influences in order to make a priest out of him.
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Cinco Dias, Cinco Noites / Five Days, Five Nights (1996) José Fonseca e Costa, Paulo Pires, Sinde Filipe, Vítor Norte, Drama
Portugal by the end of the 40’s. André escapes from jail and has to leave the country. In Oporto, some of his friends find him a guide, a drunken quarrelsome smuggler named Lambaça, who knows Trás-os-Montes border well.
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A Costa dos Murmúrios / The Murmuring Coast (2004) Margarida Cardoso, Beatriz Batarda, Filipe Duarte, Monica Calle, Drama
During the war of in-dependency Evita (Beatriz Batarda) moves from Lisbon to Mozambique to marry Luís (Filipe Duarte).
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A Tempestade da Terra / Earth Storm (1998) Fernando D’Almeida e Silva, Maria de Medeiros, João Grosso, Ângelo Torres, Drama, Romance, Thriller
Lena disappears mysteriously during the winter of 1976. This is the last stop on a journey that begins in colonial Mozambique on new year’s eve at 1957 gives way to 1958.
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Montanha (2015) João Salaviza, David Mourato, Maria João Pinho, Rodrigo Perdigão, Drama
Day breaks on the eighth floor in a suburban neighbourhood of Lisbon and 14-year-old Bruno’s grandfather is still in hospital. Doctors give him only a few days to live. The imminence of death and the void that it will leave force Bruno to become the man of the house, where he lives with his mother Mónica, who is in her 30s, and his three-year-old sister Érica.
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Cats Have No Vertigo / Os Gatos não Têm Vertigens (2014) António-Pedro Vasconcelos, Maria do Céu Guerra, João Jesus, Fernanda Serrano, Comedy, Drama
An 18 year old boy with a complicated life starts a criminal career but ends up on a rooftop of Lisbon. On the apartment below lives a recently widowed, lonely old lady. Against all odds and her family’s will, they become each others best company.
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América (2010) João Nuno Pinto, Chulpan Khamatova, Fernando Luís, María Barranco, Comedy, Drama
America a tragic story told in a burlesque and ironic way, within a love triangle. Liza, a beautiful young Russian woman, is married to Victor, a small-time crook who lives on scheming and swindling, born and bred in Portugal. Fernanda, the ex wife, who ten year’s passed decides to drop by, is the gang leader, an Andalusian Spaniard. Victor has to decide which women to follow, Liza cannot really leave him, Fernanda doesn’t really want to stay. The six year old kid hangs everybody by a string. Eastern European newcomers give new business perspectives that are going to rock their small world by the beach: Cova do Vapor. A chaotic neighborhood of precarious housing located at Lisbon’s gates, where the Tagus River meets the Atlantic, where fishermen and retired factory workers coexist. An obscure little place, where everything suddenly changes, even the weather. After a violent storm, the gangster’s house gets a rusted fishing boat hanging on top of their home.
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El viaje de Carol / Carol’s Journey (2002) Imanol Uribe, Clara Lago, Juan José Ballesta, Álvaro de Luna, Drama, Family
Carol, a twelve-year-old Spanish-American girl from New York, travels with her mother to Spain in the spring of 1938, at the height of the Civil War. Separated from her beloved father, Carol arrives in her mother’s home village and transforms the secretive family environment. Her innocence and rebellious nature drive her at first to reject a world that is at once new and foreign. But she soon journeys into adulthood through a friendship with Maruja, the village teacher, and a young local boy, Tomiche.
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John From (2015) João Nicolau, Julia Palha, Clara Riedenstein, Filipe Vargas, Drama
Bored by spending the summer in the city, 15-year-old Rita decides to take a fancy to her new neighbor, a photographer who is setting up an exhibit of his shots in Melanesia. What starts as a game turns into a blazing crush and Rita can’t distinguish between reality and fantasy anymore.
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As Bodas de Deus / The Spousals of God / God’s Wedding (1999) João César Monteiro, Rita Durão, Joana Azevedo, Comedy
All seems lost. And then, in an old, lonely and icy park two shadowy figures meet: those of Deus and a Messenger from God. The Messenger gives the crook (the temporary state of poor João de Deus) a suitcase stuffed with money. His mission accomplished, the Messenger leaves. João counts the bank notes. The silent waters of a nearby lake are disturbed when a heavy object plunges in. João goes to see what is happening. A young girl (Joana) is drowning. João throws himself into the water and carries the unconscious Joana off to a convent (Capucines?). How Responsible! João de Deus returns to the park to recover the case and its precious contents: happily, nothing has been touched…
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Fados (2007) Carlos Saura, Chico Buarque, Camané, Carlos do Carmo, Art-house, Documentary, Musical
After Flamenco (1995) and Tango (1998) – nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 2005 Carlos Saura completes his trilogy on modern urban song with Fados. After over two years of research into the subject, Carlos Saura takes an enormous step forward in his approximation to music. If, in his earlier musicals, Iberia, Flamenco, Tango…, he based his work on dancing, in Fados he makes a special effort with the plot and image to reflect the birth of a suburban, dockland music which is in itself a synthesis of all of the music born towards the end of the 19th century.
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Trois vies et une seule mort / Three Lives and Only One Death (1996) Raoul Ruiz, Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Galiena, Marisa Paredes, Comedy, Crime
Take a walk into the weird world of filmmaker Raul Ruiz as he takes us to Paris for a twisted ride. A man which shares four names and four personalities (which is the real one?) is the link between four different, yet similar, stories involving love, lust, crime, and time.
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