Known for Acting
Northern Portugal. An imposing residence with its garden and magnolia tree. As we know, home is a place that film, this outdoor art, has often used to depict less the joys of family life than a pernicious space. André Gil Mata has made it his stage, with its rooms, its furniture, what plays out there and what has already played out there. From one room to another, from one era to another, the film delves deep into this enclosed space, a kind of suffocating box.
The young film student Maria do Mar is working on a documentary about the old manor houses along the Douro River. It is the final project in her thesis on “Reality in Cinema”. Maria has an unlimited confidence in what is visible. Her candour and her naivety allow her to see the bright side of life – such as the beauty of the landscape and the authenticity of the place, or what’s left of it. But when Maria enters the final manor house on her list, she soon realises that something is going on in this house that is not as innocent as it first seemed. The manor is truly a house of horrors.
In the mid-20th century, a troubled relationship between Germana, a young writer, and Quina, her aunt who lives in the northern Portuguese countryside. Feelings of jealousy, admiration and the complex magnetism between these two strong women arise.
A European teenager ran away from home to marry a Daesh fighter. She became a bride of the Jihad. Three years later, her life has dramatically changed. She is living in an Iraqi prison camp. Now she has two children to take care of and is pregnant again. She is a 20-year-old widow and soon will be put on trial in the Iraqi courts. What have the experiences of war and brainwashing done to her?
Organized like a dream, structured like a musical and with texts, both spoken and sung, that lead us to unexpected, chaotic and exciting situations, which try to grasp part of what the unattainable Alexandre O'Neill left us.
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 is a perilous year with Mussolini’s fascism, Hitler’s Nazism, Spain’s Civil War and Salazar’s New State in Portugal. And Fernando Pessoa meets his creation, Reis. Two women, Lídia and Marcenda, are Reis’ carnal and impossible passions. “Life and Death as one” allows for literature and cinema.
Dreaming of great adventures and of standing up for his homeland, a young Portuguese man enlists in the army during World War I and is sent to the front line in Mozambique, Africa. Left behind by his platoon, he sets out on a grueling trek across the mystic Makua native land, walking for over a thousand kilometers, in search of his dream.
North of Italy, the von Kettens dispute the forces of the Episcopate of Trent. Herr Ketten seeks marriage in a distant country, Portugal. After their honeymoon journey back home, Ketten leaves again for the war. Eleven years elapsed… Rumours are running about the presence of that 'foreigner' in the castle. Some say she's a heretic. Until one day, the Bishop of Trento ends up dying and, with the signature of peace, falls the background of von Ketten's life. Will the Portuguese win, where death seems to be moving in?
Alentejo, Portugal, 1950. In a desolate region, where the wind seems to speak, where misery and hunger reign over poorest, a desperate man takes his revenge on those who caused his ruin during the darkest night, unable to get honestly the bread needed to feed his family in the daylight.
A chronology of the Avenue Almirante Reis in Lisbon. Its past and present. A portrait of those that inhabit it.
Francisca, a beautiful 50-year-old widow, prepared a peaceful future for herself. In an unexpected outburst, she grabs an opportunity for change and embarks on a sailboat called ‘Hovering Over the Water’.
