Joana Brandão

How happy and proud they are those two ladies back in Oporto! Thanks to them, their bright nephew can study medicine in Lisbon and may already have become a doctor. Little do they know, not only Vasco wastes all his time drinking, dancing and picking up girls but he has just failed his final exam! And in that same day, he receives an email from the two aunts announcing their visit to Lisbon! Will he be able to make them believe he is such a good student as they think?

At evening, Carlos disappears... Lea, Pedro and Rafa start looking for him, they search all around Sintra. Was already night time when there was just one place they didn't go... the Castle "dos Mouros". Even how frightened they were the start the walk, through the castle. At that time parents were already worried. It wasn't the first time a kid disappeared, a legend of a monster existed in Sintra... Híssis.

Ana is in her thirties and unable to share physical intimacy. She has recently started dating and feels increasingly anxious. Her therapist, who is also dealing with her own personal issues, incites Ana to overcome her fears and experience pleasure. As their stories intertwine, unexpected challenges emerge.

Manô, an obscure and anonymous character from popular comedies of the 1920s, escapes the destruction of an old movie studio, materializing into the real world from a celluloid film. Manô tries to adapt and survive in present-day Lisbon, for which he is unprepared. Mariana, an unemployed photographer, meets Manô and tries to help him discover the reason for his return, despite Marco, a psychologist with little sense of humor, disliking this clumsy black-and-white character.

Mariana, a Portuguese woman who migrated to New Zealand, finds her life woven with Tui, her Maori neighbor. A film about leaving and living, and all the threads in between.

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.

Vera, a single mother with two small children, is forced to have two jobs to survive after her children's father has disappeared. She works as a cashier at a supermarket by day and at night works in a strip club, trying not only to raise her children but also to pay off the debts that her ex-partner left her. Harassed in both jobs, one day she reacts violently when a nightclub client is more daring, being sentenced in court to perform community service in a nursing home, where her irreverence and youth will clash with the authoritarianism and inhumanity of the director. For the elderly who live in the nursing home, Vera is a breath of fresh air that little by little will change their lives, becoming the true home fairy…

The story about the romance of Snu Abecassis and the former Portuguese prime minister Sá Carneiro.

A short time has passed. Both arrived to a point of no return, a break is the only way out. One of them has to take the first step. This morning both decide to leave, definitely, without the other realizing it. The house remains empty.

THE SMELL OF CANDLES is a short film about the emotional boundaries that bind the relationships between siblings. Sara and Gabriela have long lost contact with each other. They finally meet for their mother's anniversary. Amongst the present silences and the confrontations from the past, the two sisters rediscover their intimacy in an unexpected surprise party.

In this evocative story told ingeniously with minimal dialogue, men and women from various backgrounds and places each deal with the loss of a loved one.