In the outskirts of London, Portuguese couple and parents of three, Bela and Jota, struggle to make ends meet. When a misunderstanding arises at school with their deaf daughter, the British social services grow concerned for the safety of their children. The film portrays the tireless battle of these immigrant parents against the law to keep their family together.
Buenos Aires. Exe, 25 years old, has just lost his job and is not looking for another one. His neighbors and friends seem as odd to him as they always do. Online, he meets Alf, a boy from Mozambique who is also bored with his job and who is about to follow Archie, another boy who has run away into the jungle. Through the dense vegetation of the forest, Archie tracks ants back to their nest. One of them wanders off course and comes across Canh, a Filipino, sitting on top of a giant heap of earth and who is about to go back to his strange, beautiful home town, where he too has a miserable job.
Illa de Arousa, 1971. Maria is a woman who earns her living by seafood. She is also known on the island for helping other women in childbirth with special dedication and care. After an unexpected event, she is forced to flee and begins a dangerous journey that will make her fight for her survival. Seeking her freedom, Maria decides to cross the border by one of the smuggling routes between Galicia and Portugal.
Pessoa famously published under many heteronyms: around 75 different names, each with fully fleshed-out backgrounds, styles, appearances and philosophies. Taking this a step further, Não Sou Nada gives flesh to these characters, all working together under Pessoa, enacted by Miguel Borges, at the publishing house The Nothingness Club.
A mysterious shadow unveiling a female figure walking naked towards us in the desert. In another sequence, the same woman speaks on the phone, talking about the end of the world. In a third moment, a couple prepares breakfast in their apartment, with the same woman from the previous sequences embracing a baby. What will these three narrative moments have in common? What is the relationship between them? Everything and nothing. Is the answer in the woman’s emotional words on the phone? Or in her helpless expression when walking naked? Or in the happiness she seems to find in the domestic routine? Perhaps the charm is really not in trying to decipher, but in getting lost in this visual and impressionistic poem, this shake that slowly expands in our senses. Max Planck, one of the founders of the ancient quantum physics theory, said that energy has a discontinuous structure and can only exist under the form of fragments. These are the fragments that hide here an ethereal promise.
Who is Sycorax? The first character in Shakespeare's "Tempest" to set foot on the island. The problem is that she has no voice. She is barely mentioned by Prospero as a crooked, old, wicked witch who vilely locked Ariel, the spirit of the air, in a tree. But why would she do that? Here, we wouldn't believe Prospero so much.
Canned Dreams shows the multi-branching network of the modern food industry. The Finnish consumer buys a can in the grocery store, but where from far away do the raw materials and packaging materials for the preserves come from - and through how many hands? The film not only traces the various stages of the production process, but gives a voice to the people who work as part of it.
Maria spends her days working in her family’s noisy metal factory. While being oppressed by male violence, she is also responsible for caring for her sister-in-law and niece, both existentially depleted. A revolution starts to boil within her.
Jake and Mati are two outsiders in the northerly Portuguese city of Porto who once experienced a brief connection. A mystery remains about the moments they shared, and in searching through memories, they relive the depths of a night uninhibited by the consequences of time.
Lovecraft and Pessoa were among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Cartas Telepáticas is a film, created with AI images, that explores the invisible links between the unique points of view of these two authors
A kino-investigation about spectatorship, a continuous conversation between different kinds of spectators: which one is more cinema: Citizen Kane on a mobile phone or a football game projected in a cinema theatre? What is the cinema of uncertainty? How many kinds of amazement exist? Does fear and belief precede amazement? What are the rights and duties of the spectator? Is the essay film a manifesto against voyeurism? Should spectators be paid? What amazes the spectator of this day and age?
In a parallel world Pedro tries to hack his way into joining an exodus to another planet. While he dwells in his dreams and frustrations of being left behind he meets Eva, who challenges him and forces him to come to terms with his purpose.
In 1985, former oil rig worker Richard Linklater began a film screening society in Austin, Texas, that aimed to show classic art-house and experimental films to a budding community of cinephiles. Eventually incorporating as a nonprofit, the newly branded Austin Film Society raised enough money to fly in their first out-of-town filmmaker: James Benning. Accepting the invitation, Benning met Linklater and the two began to develop a personal and intellectual bond, leading to many future encounters. Starting in the 1960s, Benning had been creating low budget films mostly on his own, while Linklater had just begun to craft his first shorts. The filmmakers have remained close even as their careers have diverged. After the cult success of Slacker, Linklater went on to make films with Hollywood support. Benning, meanwhile, has stayed close to his roots and is mainly an unknown figure in mainstream film culture.
End of the line is a film based on real events that never happened, but that may happen, you never know...
A worker in a big city who feels uncomfortable around women meets a sex worker, and in an attempt to overcome his hesitations, he discovers his sexuality.
Two brothers, who haven't spoken in years, meet at their mother's funeral where they must deal with their mourning family, their obligations as sons and their own feelings of loss.
On a hot August afternoon, the family gather at the table and remember Uncle Botão: the Colonial War, and emigration to France where he lived and worked for thirty years as a garbage man.
Téo, a lunar teenager, meets the new parish priest of his rural village, who has just arrived from Mozambique. As the two grow closer, they develop a spiritual bond steeped in attraction.
'A Távola de Rocha' enables us to enter Paulo Rocha’s universe, to gather memories and find, within his personal and professional relationships, a key to decipher some of the unknown symbols and allusions contained in his films.
