एडवांस सर्च

Portugal, 1739, the reign of King João V, who tries to keep a delicate balance between the power of the Church and the interests of the Court. António José da Silva, nicknamed "the Jew", a famous playwright admired both by the people and the aristocracy, is charged by the Inquisition with the crime of heresy and sentenced to die at the stake. His execution is organized as a demonstration of the triumphant power of the Church against any other force.

Ngando and Ndomé; are in love. Ngando wishes to marry Ndomé; but her family reminds him that the traditional dowry must be settled. Unfortunately, Ngando is poor and unable to fulfill the tradition. Ndomé; is pregnant and bears his child. According to the village tradition, she must take a husband, at least one who can afford to pay the dowry. The villagers decide that Ndomé; should marry Ngando's uncle, who has already three sterile wives. In despair, the young man kidnaps his daughter upon the day of the traditional feast. An African Romeo and Juliet story.

A critique of the romantic Portuguese society of the nineteenth century.

A look at the urban society of the seventies. The story of Marta a young and pretty girl, who leaves her husband to search for her true identity. She doesn't quite know what she wants, but at least she knows what she's escaping from. Soon she encounters financial difficulties and finds herself involved with shady characters, a situation that leads to a mysterious murder. The net closes around her.

The story of a woman who searches through the country for her husband, a resistant, while the war for independence is raging. She finds him at last and saves his life. When peace finally arrives, they have to learn how to be together again and start living in a destroyed land.

In the colonial era the Grande Hotel in the city of Beira was the largest in Mozambique: 350 rooms, luxurious suites, Olympic-sized swimming pool... At present the building, which is in ruins, with no electricity or running water, is inhabited by 3500 people. Some have been living there for twenty years. In addition to the rooms, the foyers, corridors, service areas and basement of the hotel - here it's always night-time - also serve as residences. No trace of sadness of self pity in this luminous documentary.

A portrait of the everyday life of a typical middle-class family in parallel with the fall of the "Estado Novo", the 48-year dictatorship led by Salazar. The daughters' conflicts and frustrations with their parents, their grandmother and their maid find an obvious echo in the country's collective events. The Carnation Revolution is about to explode.

A beautiful, intelligent and flirtatious young girl, Yonta, is secretly in love with a friend of her parents, Vicente, a hero of the war of independence. Vicente is unaware of her passion as she is of the love of a young man who sends her anonymous love letters.

The gods have declared the drought of the country. There seems to be no hope. A holy man summoned by the king requires the sacrifice of a young woman to put an end to their anger. A young man in love decides to go in search of water to save the girl from a tragic end, but when he returns with good news it's too late: the genie had his satisfaction and Toula has already disappeared in the holy swamp.

After refusing the sexual advances of her village chief and her father's authority, a young woman runs away from home and goes to town. There she meets several members of her family and tries to start her life from scratch. She enrolls at a high school and makes new friends. However, she realizes that social relations in town also depend on sexual favors and that around her everyone has given in to that practice. When she loses the only man she loved, the girl returns to her village and in a fit of rage sets it on fire.

Lives of circus performers in times of decay.

It was September in Lisbon. Elsa's young daughter leaves with her father, and Teresa, a friend's friend, comes to stay in her room. One night the two women go out and meet Raul, a vagrant lover of Elsa. A triangle takes form. They finish the night on a boat named Pandora but in the morning Raul sails away, alone. Elsa and Teresa are free to start a new life.

The relationship between António and Ruth ends unexpectedly when Ruth decides to live with Pedro, António's best friend. António doesn't fight back and lets himself drown. From the woods come Violeta and Gaspar, two strange beings, a mixture of fairies, demons and guardian angels, who help António overcome his depression. With the thunders the two characters return to their domains. And life goes on.

In Porto Santo, a small island next to Madeira the drought rages and Gonçalves, a local farmer, tries to overcome the catastrophe, with the help of Bastiana, whom he dearly loves. João Venâncio, who refuses to share the water of his field, tries to steal her heart. One day Gonçalves decides to fight for his beloved, beating violently Venâncio in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

Meia-Lua used to be a sailor, but he now makes a poor living smuggling. He is a cynical man, who doesn't care for Ana or for the child they had together. He lives with the beautiful Marlene who dances in the bars. Gull spends her whole days lulling a doll in her arms, and she waits for her love that will rise from the depths of the sea. The deaf musician Sparrow watches over her, in his despaired love and long-held wish of becoming a sea captain. There is a dispute down the piers, there is a crime that might be just an accident, there is a bad conscience that turns sour, there is a boat full of poor wretches like a rocking lullaby, a baby that passes from arms to arms, a clumsy beggar that finds some work, a courthouse of tramps... From this expressionist account that has unexpected comical moments, the censors from Salazar's regime cut away 20 minutes that were never to be found again.

In 1971, Christo and Jeanne-Claude thought of wrapping the Reichstag. After endless meetings with Government officials, they were finally given permission to wrap the Reichstag in 1994. For 7 days, in June 1995, a steel framework was constructed, then a metalized material was bound with 17, 060 yards of blue rope. The Reichstag, wrapped in this shiny material, seemed to move in the wind. Five million people visited this extraordinary project.

This film illustrate through physical struggle, the clash between generations and civilizations.

Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.

A sentimental comedy about toothpicks. A man makes and exchanges toothpicks for numerous products as he ignores money. He is called "The millionaire" and goes through the city, walking, meeting friends, Carlitos, the newspaper seller, and Celeste the lemon seller and living an innocent life, in contrast with the city, filled with traps.

Shot between 1986 and 1988, Kafi's Story captures Nuba life at the moment before it was engulfed in the Sudanese civil war. Kafi, a young man from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, is one of the first to travel north to the capital city Khartoum in search of money. Only when he has money can he buy the cloth for a dress and so marry a second wife.

The sea, often treacherous, is the only source of living of the people of Nazaré. The film tells the story of António and his family, where no dreams are allowed. There is also the mourning of the woman in black wailing silently on the beach or waiting for their children lost in the sea.

Ten years after shooting Kafi's Story, British filmmaker Arthur Howes reentered the Sudan clandestinely to find out what had happened to the Nuba of Torogi. Everywhere, he encountered the face of jihad, or holy war. For example, a remarkable television program, Fields of Sacrifice, celebrates that week's casualties in the war against the Nuba and features family members thanking Allah for having taken their sons and brothers as martyrs.

Dipri is a form of initiation practiced by the Abidji people. During a colorful trip that takes place every year, the population engage in a demonstration of religious mystic power fueled by a collective trance, while great masters suffer injuries with a knife they claim cure instantly. The director Roger M'Bala, one of the most important of his country, has decided to film the ancestral costumes of several tribes of Ivory Coast before they disappear completely. Being a member of this community he mingles with the crowd without being noticed, delivering the essence of the celebration.

Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, and Franco, the Spanish dictator, had parallel lives and supported each other, being the front men for two regimes which for decades coexisted in time and only disappeared after each other's death. Based on rigorous international archive researches, historian statements and testimonials of people who worked closely with the two dictators, this documentary follows the historical path of both Iberian neighbors. It was such a strong relationship that one would not live without the other.

The famous tragedy of Charlemagne and his nephew the Duque of Mantua, in conflict about a murder. The play, six hours long in its complete version, is performed each year in several villages of Saint Thomas Island, an ancient Portuguese colony. The characters, interpreted only by men wearing masks and sumptuous clothes in European style, are transmitted from father to son, and declaim an unalterable text. Several interviews with them lead us to understand the almost sacred function they are representing.