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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 44 movies from Instituto do Cinema, Audiovisual e Multimédia
Wanderings of a sordid and abandoned city of Lisbon from the graphic work of Stuart de Carvalhais
Nov 2006
A philosophy-obsessed serial rapist stalks a university campus in broad daylight.
Nov 2001
According to Sigmund Freud: “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways”. “Umbral” materialises the moral dilemma of whether there is a cause and effect link between trauma and criminal behaviour.
Sep 2024
A train compartment, four people, a ticket collector, a Barcelos penknife and a potential assassin. Will they all make it to the end of the journey?
Jan 2000
It's the story of a child and her mother, two lives that don't communicate with each other. Is that loneliness that sometimes reaches the size of the night. Dark is the night. Dark is the mother. And dark becomes the entire Universe when you are alone and abandoned.
Nov 1999
In a quiet fishing village on northern France's Opal Coast, the birth of a peculiar child sparks a hidden war between extraterrestrial forces of good and evil.
Feb 2024
Documentary about African freedom fighter Amílcar Cabral, whose story is told by his relatives and friends. Amílcar, besides being a humanist and nationalist, was also a brilliant poet.
One night, contract killers Safo and Erina celebrate their latest work when they are surprised by an unusual request: a black envelope with just the signature 'V'.
Feb 2025
A powerful entrepreneur wants to build an exclusive resort hotel in Villanova, but he discovers the location he has in mind is protected by local land-use regulations. He hires Maria, a beautiful and elegant prostitute, to seduce the mayor, leaving him open to blackmail if he won't give the entrepreneur what he wants. Maria has no trouble twisting Meireles around her finger, but police detectives Madeira and Neves get wind of the plan and set out to expose the plot...
Dec 2007
Guilherme and Sofia, brother and sister, grow up sharing experiences and slowly discovering their sexuality. The thing that Sofia doesn't know is how far Guilherme will go to keep her inside his own perverse, dark and perfect circle.
Sep 2009
A document about the memory and life of men and women who lived in a Portuguese-American community and were once repatriated. Tony, Dulce, António, Manuel and Mário have one thing in common: they have been convicted in a harsh justice that repatriated them after many years of imprisonment. Within the Portuguese-American community to which they belonged, everyone worked regularly when the US authorities decided to reopen their court proceedings.
Forget everything, or recover memory and remember. Let yourself fall and stop, or return to life and start again. Adrift, lost face-to-face, two women confront their fates. Is there not just one thing worth saving? Without hesitation, the desire to live, that rebellious fury that takes no heed of risks. And how do you save a world where poetry has disappeared?
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A family gathers to celebrate Christmas.
Dec 2000
Undaunted by a commission to make a film about his mentors and aesthetic exemplars, the filmmaking team of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Costa records with great sensitivity and insight the exacting process by which the two re-edit their film Sicilia!, discussing and arguing over each cut and its effect. Incorporating comments about the influence of figures as diverse as Chaplin and Eisenstein, about the ethical and aesthetic implications of film technique and such matters as rhythm, sound mixing, and acting. The film becomes a tour de force, immersing us in the mysteries of cinema as practiced by some of its greatest creators. Costa calls the film both his first comedy and his first love story.
Jan 2003
A woman takes her young son, leaves her husband and moves in with her lover. The boy, desperate to get his parents back together, becomes convinced that if only he can get his father's stolen motorcycle back everything will be fine again, so he sets out to get enough money to buy his father a new one.
Mar 1999
Dealing with a series of increasingly absurd situations and relationships, recently separated yoga instructors Gustavo and Vanesa are finding it difficult to live apart. Their challenges include meddling mothers, amnesiac students, and burgeoning romances. Step by step, they find their way back to the practice.
Oct 2024
In Cape Verde, where the majority of the population is young, children use olive oil cans, bits of sandals, leftover tires and pieces of cardboard to build their own toys. The absence of a consumer society and the challenges posed by insularity have led them to invent their own recreational independence with almost nothing.
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 teletransport himself to escape the Guard while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad!
Jul 2015
Summer of 1870. Two writers, Eça de Queiroz and Ramalho Ortigão, decide to write a four-handed whodunit for the daily "Diário de Notícias". Could it be that the story they wrote as fiction is based on a real case? This question fuels the conflict between the two writers and drives them to a nearly fatal duel. Lisbon is in commotion. One crime follows another in a story in which love is stronger than tradition. Everything happens at frenzied pace, as in a game.
May 2007