Menu
© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 35 movies from Real Ficção
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.
Nov 2025
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.
Apr 2023
With this trip, an intergenerational sharing begins: with Portugal present as a backdrop, the director and a little daughter wander as if in question, trying to understand the country of today.
Oct 2021
Documentary about "Madrugada" show: On the eve of 25th of April, 1999, took place at Praça do Comércio, in Lisbon, the performance of "Madrugada", a creation of the Theatre O Bando, commissioned by the Lisbon city council to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the "April Revolution".
Jan 1999
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.
Nov 2006
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.
Oct 2025
Founded in 1974, O Bando has known how to grow artistically. From an initial project, almost exclusively dedicated to a younger public, it developed the idea of a community theatre where different generation can meet. O Bando tries to find the anthropologic roots of our imaginary and tries to create poetic visual, at a risk accepted by the experimental contemporary art.
Jan 1994
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.
Jan 2005
Frei Gualter is sent by S. Francisco de Assis to Guimarães around 1213. The devotion to this franciscan friar started to rise and in 1577 the brotherhood of S. Gualter is created. The Gualterianas are celebrated since 1906, the new way of celebration in honor of their patron.
Jan 2012
50 years after its beginning, it's still a delicate and hermetic subject today, based on an exclusively male speech, as if veterans were war's only owners and victims. When a country is at war though, is there anybody left out? Warriors is a generation's war movie, told by those who were left behind to wait, those who chose to be there and those who ran to rescue the soldiers from the battle's front lines. A female insight on war.
Jun 2011
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.
May 2018
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?
Jan 2004
Woman seeks house to domesticate. Wants sensitive, versatile space, any age, with sense of humour. Offers availability of feelings. Has references. Schedule to be arranged.
Jun 2008
A zoetrope is a pre-film animation device. It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. By turning it, the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.
Sep 2016
Documentary by Rui Simões, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of Expo 98, one of the biggest exhibitions that Portugal hosted
Jan 2018
Documentary about the life of the lyric singer Natália de Andrade.
Sep 2011
40 years later, Rui Simões returns to São Pedro da Cova to exhibit the photographs he took during the directing of São Pedro da Cova's films. From this reencounter a new message to the centralised powers: now it's toxic waste that is threatening people's health. 40 years later. From coal to waste, the fight goes on.
Apr 2017
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.
May 2023
The story of a homeless man and his journey.
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.
Apr 2021