In 1917, outside the parish of Fátima, Portugal, a 10-year-old girl and her two younger cousins witness multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, who tells them that only prayer and suffering will bring an end to World War I. As secularist government officials and Church leaders try to force the...
Every night, in danger of being beheaded, Scheherazade tells King Shahryar unfinished tales to continue them the following night, hence defying his promise of murdering his new wives after their wedding night. Scheherazade tells King Shahryar her stories but these are not those in the book. As in...
A cowboy arrives in a village in search of his daughter, a native policewoman arrests various offenders in a snowy landscape, while her niece, a basketball coach, reunites with her grandfather for a decisive journey that will shape her future, a bird flies through time and space and begins to enter...
Xavier, a village boy, falls for Laura, neighbor's granddaughter who visits her grandfather annually. Despite flirting at summer dances, Xavier believes he has no chance with her.
The story of Brazil’s first emperor, returning to Europe on board the English ship Warspite. The trip makes Pedro conquer his fears and face his life from a personal point of view. He goes back in time and relives outstanding moments of his earlier life – since his childhood, when in 1808 he...
Between February and July 1858, in the Massabielle cave, the Virgin appeared eighteen times to Bernadette Soubirous, a miserable little girl from Lourdes. A true revolution in the heart of the Second Empire that shakes the established order by his universal message of love and prayer.
Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest writers in Portuguese, created an immense parallel world and several heteronyms so as to endure the loneliness of genius. José Saramago, 1998 Nobel Laureate in Literature, has a heteronym, Ricardo Reis, return to Portugal after a 16-year exile in Brazil. 1936...
The disappearance of his wife leaves Fernando, a quiet geography teacher, completely devastated. Aimless, he assumes another man’s identity as a gardener on a Portuguese estate, where he forms an unexpected friendship with the owner, stepping into a new life that isn’t his own.
In 2011 Portugal began the so-called "year of the Troika" (EU, IMF and ECB budget cuts and economic restructuring), with the level of debt among the Portuguese people reaching staggering amounts and a growing number of families and companies unable to repay their installment loans. Jorge is an...
Lisbon, today. In a room of a house at Douradores Street, a man invents dreams and theorizes about them. The essence of the dreams itself becomes physical, palpable, visible. The text itself materializes in its musicality. And, in front of our eyes, this music can be felt with the ears, brain and...
Rita is fifteen and spends the summer between warm afternoons of teenage love and party nights with her friend Sara. From Portugal to the South Pacific, the pleasures of this routine will take a turn when the young girl visits the art show of a new neighbor in the local community.
Can a turtle, the most pacific animal on earth, start a range of significant events that are going to forever change a couple's life? After dividing all their assets, Arnaldo e Barbara still have one decision to make before they formalize their separation: what to do with the turtle? Amongst...
Thirteen year-old André lives isolated with his father in the dry region of Alentejo, helping with his water well drilling business instead of going to school. When his father suddenly disappears, André must turn to the only neighbor in miles, a young mother named Sandra, as the only chance of...
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...
The story of five generations of the Austrian-Brazilian Knieps family, from the inauguration of their family-owned Great Mystical Circus in the 1910s up to the early 21st century, following both the family and the circus from their prime through to their decadence.
The darkness of night, a barely lit place, motorbikes flirting with danger: a group of teenagers at a crossroads playing chicken with unaware passing cars. Jota (Eduardo Frazão) stands out from this group, unclassifiable; his destiny has no straight lines save those on the asphalt. Jota lives in...
Three homeless teenage rejects struggle to survive together. Of them, Andreia is pregnant, while Pedro and Ricardo hustle, steal and are exploited by a pornographer.
The start of Luís Rovisco’s old age isn’t exactly cheerful. Already in his sixties, he’s still roaming the country by himself, carrying out his tasks — increasingly less real — as sales director for the company SegurVale. Sadness, resignation? Not with the songs Luís makes up behind the...
