Real Ficção

A renowned symbol of Portuguese interventionist theatre, Cornucópia emerged from the darkness of fascism to fight dictatorship on stage. Among the classics, a project is born and dies, but one face remains emblematic: Luís Miguel Cintra, who shared his art with the constant complicity of set designer Cristina Reis. Together, guided by images, they bear witness, telling this story.

How would you react if you couldn't see? In rehearsing the theatrical adaptation of "Blindness", by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, the company "O Bando" made the experience. The actors lived 24 hours blindfolded in an abandoned hospital. How would you react if you could see again?

Júlia is a 16 year old teenager. A sudden emergency hospital commitment helps her realize, although reluctent, that she suffers from a serious desease: nervous anorexy. Her recovery is slow, but she can count on the support from both her friend, parents and the psychologist.

Fiction is never very far from reality. A young man, of Portuguese heritage, decides to do a PhD based on the documentary The Good People of Portugal, a work from 1980, also directed by Rui Simões. This opens the door to a parallel between the reality of the film we see and that of PREC, the moment of the studied documentary and the contemporary world, with the young Michel in between.

100,000 Portuguese young men left for war in the countrie's former colonies. In the same period, 100,000 fled the country so as to not be part of that war. What was the former's role in shaping Portugal?

Documentary about the life of the lyric singer Natália de Andrade.

Documentary about the old people living in the highest floors of old buildings with no lifts, in Lisbon.

Fernando Lemo's world is fiercely stripped of any external logic, as Jorge de Sena once said. His artistic gesture blends with his own existence, where the poetic principle comes first. And with the light that insists to come through the half-closed door, the fear of life is vanquished in the battle fought with death. Thus, each word is born within another word and each image within another image. Out of how many knives is love made, the poet wonders?

Film adaptation of "The letter from the hunchback to the locksmith" by Fernando Pessoa's heteronym Maria José.

This documentary shows a peculiar vision about theatre in general and O Bando in particular, on the bases of João Brites' directing the showcase of “ENSAIO SOBRE A CEGUEIRA” (essay on blindness), written by José Saramago.

Built in the New State to control the overseas students, the House of the Students of the Empire, situated in Lisbon with delegations in Coimbra and Porto, was fundamental in the fight for independence of the Portuguese colonies. Future leaders of the Liberation Movement, like Agostinho Neto and Amílcar Cabral, passed through this meeting point. The documentary The House restores the memories of the testimonies of the survivors of the House, fictionalizing in parallel excerpts of Pepetela´s “The Generations of Utopia”.

The paths of pain are populated by men and women of all ages, suffering from lack of affection, lack of money, mental problems, alcoholism and drug addiction, or they are simply people who have come to Portugal in search of a life that is a little better. On the other side of this path there is a veritable anthill of volunteers, social welfare workers and different technical assistants who construct and maintain support structures, some of them thinking of better days, and others institutionalising this help without believing that the phenomenon can be cured.

This documentary follows a group of habitants from Cova da Moura neighborhood into a journey to Cape Verde, to celebrate St. John festivities. Recovering the rituals and rhythms of these festivities, the cape verdean people living in that neighborhood near Lisbon, try to recover their roots and transmit it to their children.

Documentary about the work and life of António Ole, one of the most notable contemporary artists from Angola.

Benjamin is trying to raise money through informal exchanges so that he can organize his son’s overdue birthday. Filimone is visiting his family between war missions, trying to be present at the growth of his three daughters. Eulália is a mother of six and gives birth to a new premature baby. Some days after, she has to come back to her job in a landfill.

Can an artist be the protagonist of his life and interpret a film about himself? Is the artwork a redemption for our troubled times? with this question We set out in search of a project for a house and its thousand faces that accompany Carlos Nogueira. A demiurge with a diverse and vast work like the landscapes of Mozambique where he grew up. Multidisciplinary artist, where all his gestures enunciate a sublime trait, whose craft and purpose in his life reveals itself as a work of art.

Departing from extracts written by Fernando Pessoa, the characters walk through the city of Lisbon, having the streets and houses where the Poet lived as the background.

Peruvian sculptor Silvia Westphalen reencounters friends, places and pieces of work in the company of the director Rui Simões

In 'Os Fotocines', an intimate portrait of the war is built with those who lived it. This documentary feature film aims to investigate who were those, that in the Portuguese colonial war, lived with the simultaneous responsibility of fighting, defending their own lives and also, of permanently recording that same collective mission, through cameras and shooting, as well as screening.

Live concert of the Irmãos Catita and friends at the Ritz Club, in 1996, Very Sentimental Show. Includes bonus concerts: Cinearte 1993, and Queima das fitas Coimbra 1994. The roots of the Catitas' spirit are buried deep down the origin of time. Spread like Polibas around the World, starting from its own center of balance, elsewhere in the elevator of Grand Hotel Curia, raised by the "madrastas", a kind of so-called religious female-educator, spread amoung the Christian World, and whose main educational tool is the stick, the Catita brothers became early "stars" within the various orphanage they frequented, from French Polynésie to San Marino's Republic, through Casa Pia and the various holiday camps of the former New State, today refered to as Old State.