Manuel Mozos

Directing

Manuel Mozos

Born

1959-01-01 (67)

Place of birth

Lisbon, Portugal

Known for

Directing

Credits

68 titles

Manuel Mozos (born June 1959, in Lisbon) is a Portuguese film director. Mozos studied history and philosophy before enrolling at the School of Theatre and Cinema, where he specialized as an editor. He was responsible for the editing of several films, and in 1989, he directed Um Passo, Outro Passo e Depois... In 1992, he directed his first feature, Xavier. Since then he has also directed several documentaries and video clips, including 4 Hearts, produced and released by Rosa Filmes.

Known for

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One poster
7.0

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!

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One

2015

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal poster
6.3

Lisbon, Portugal, 1927. The writer and journalist Fernando Pessoa accepts from his boss the commission to create an advertising slogan for the drink Coca-Louca; but conservative government authorities consider the new drink as revolutionary as it is diabolical.

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal

2018

No artwork available
7.3

In a specialized, hermetic drama about love won and lost, not necessarily by the same individuals, novice director Christine Laurent has focused on the backstage melodramas of an opera company. The conductor for an upcoming performance of the Marriage of Figaro has his mind and heart on other matters -- an entrancing diva who keeps him enraptured with her presence and voice. In the meantime, he finds fault with his cast members who cannot, of course, measure up to the woman of his dreams. As singers encounter one problem or another, it is clear that something has to be done about the conductor. Director Laurent designed costumes for both theater and opera, giving her some insight into the venue.

Vertiges

1985

A Few Things Happening by a River poster
8.0

A group of teenagers floats down the river, pretending to be dead for social media. One of them drifts away.

A Few Things Happening by a River

2026

Providence and the Guitar poster
NR

In a distant past, Léon and Elvira Berthelini, itinerant artists, make their living hopping from town to town. In Covarronca, harassed by the Police Commissioner, they are forced to spend the night out in the open. That’s when they meet Stubbs, a young Cambridge student, with whom they find shelter in the home of a painter at odds with his wife. In return for the hospitality, they remind their hosts that the love of art resolves the art of love. Meanwhile, an unusual curse sends them on absurd journeys into the 21st century, where the future of social security and of a rock band are at stake.

Providence and the Guitar

2026

Pai Natal poster
NR

The story of a young cinephile, who, coming from Braga, arrives in Lisbon, where he found a peculiar and fleeting job. Between the dark movie theatres, a girl and friends, the portrait of a certain era and of a young man like many, kind of lost, kind of uninterested.

Pai Natal

2011

Film credits

2020s · 12 titles

A Few Things Happening by a River poster
8.0

A group of teenagers floats down the river, pretending to be dead for social media. One of them drifts away.

A Few Things Happening by a River

2026

Providence and the Guitar poster
NR

In a distant past, Léon and Elvira Berthelini, itinerant artists, make their living hopping from town to town. In Covarronca, harassed by the Police Commissioner, they are forced to spend the night out in the open. That’s when they meet Stubbs, a young Cambridge student, with whom they find shelter in the home of a painter at odds with his wife. In return for the hospitality, they remind their hosts that the love of art resolves the art of love. Meanwhile, an unusual curse sends them on absurd journeys into the 21st century, where the future of social security and of a rock band are at stake.

Providence and the Guitar

2026

Don't Look Away poster
NR

Four film critics, accompanied by the discreet presence of a director, analyse the origins of their cinephilia.

Don't Look Away

2026

Bruno Aleixo's Film poster
6.7

Bruno Aleixo was invited to write a biopic about his own life. Lacking ideas, he decided to ask his closest friends for inspiration. Reunited in a cafe, each of his friends suggests a different idea, more or less biographical.

Bruno Aleixo's Film

2020

Reaping Cherries poster
NR

O que eu vi quando me mostraram a ecografia não acreditei. Dentro do meu útero havia milhares de minúsculos seres, com forma de aranha mas de corpo tenro e flexível. What I saw when the ultrasound was shown to me, I couldn't believe. Inside my uterus there were hundreds of tiny creatures, shaped like spiders, but of flexible and tender body.

Reaping Cherries

2025

Uma História do Espectador de Cinema poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Uma História do Espectador de Cinema

2023

Tempos de Escola poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Tempos de Escola

2024

Légua poster
5.5

At an old manor house in northern Portugal, Ana helps her friend, Emília, the elderly housekeeper who is determined to continue to keep the unoccupied house in order for the owners who are never there. As the seasons turn, Mónica, Ana's daughter, challenges her mother's choices and the three generations of women search to understand where they belong in a world that is rapidly fading, where the cycle of life is renovated only through inevitable endings.

Légua

2023

Love Lights poster
NR

The evocation of light in the cinema leads the Character of the Man of Light to ponder over it, over its essence and its multiple manifestations in a revisitation of geographical places and memories.

Love Lights

2022

Encoberto poster
NR

Vargas is an undercover agent whose mission is to capture a group of robbers. The robbery of a jewelry store will be the ideal moment to catch them in the act. After a conversation with Ricardo, one of the group's members, Vargas questions his view of the enemy, making the mission much more difficult.

Encoberto

2022

The Journey poster
NR

A filmmaker and an actress travel towards a remote location, in search of a particular house, and of inspiration for their next movie. The region is Douro, and the house belonged to Manoel de Oliveira, where he took refuge to create many of his works.

The Journey

2020

Primeira Obra poster
1.0

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.

Primeira Obra

2023

2010s · 13 titles

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One poster
7.0

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!

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One

2015

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal poster
6.3

Lisbon, Portugal, 1927. The writer and journalist Fernando Pessoa accepts from his boss the commission to create an advertising slogan for the drink Coca-Louca; but conservative government authorities consider the new drink as revolutionary as it is diabolical.

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal

2018

Pai Natal poster
NR

The story of a young cinephile, who, coming from Braga, arrives in Lisbon, where he found a peculiar and fleeting job. Between the dark movie theatres, a girl and friends, the portrait of a certain era and of a young man like many, kind of lost, kind of uninterested.

Pai Natal

2011

Technoboss poster
5.6

The start of Luís Rovisco’s old age isn’t exactly cheerful. Already in his sixties, he’s still roaming the country by himself, carrying out his tasks — increasingly less real — as sales director for the company SegurVale. Sadness, resignation? Not with the songs Luís makes up behind the wheel, and that take over this film from start to finish.

Technoboss

2019

A Woman's Revenge poster
6.3

Roberto is one of those men to whom simulation has become the greatest art. He is an unmoved, inscrutable, mysterious man. But the truth is that Robert feels an intimate, deep tedium. The boredom of those who have already exhausted all the pleasures of life. The only thing still surprising him is the fact that nothing surprises him anymore. One evening he has an overwhelming encounter with a woman. For his own bewilderment, he discovers the sublime horrors in which the woman has sank.

A Woman's Revenge

2012

Drifters of a shadowy dream poster
NR

X, a film location scout, spend his time travelling from place to place looking for filming locations, at the same time that he's looking for funding for the film he wrote himself. In the middle of nowhere, as in the nowhere of his life, he stumbles on Y, the woman for whom he has been waiting all his life.

Drifters of a shadowy dream

2018

A Portuguese Film poster
NR

A documentary about the world of portuguese cinema, with interviews with some critics and directors.

A Portuguese Film

2011

João Bénard da Costa: Others Will Love the Things I Have Loved poster
7.5

Director Manuel Mozos draws an intimate portrait of João Bénard da Costa, programmer, critic, actor and, for 18 years, director of the Portuguese Film Museum, who passed away in 2009.

João Bénard da Costa: Others Will Love the Things I Have Loved

2015

The Glory of Filmmaking in Portugal poster
6.2

On 18 September 1929, José Régio sent a letter to Alberto Serpa expressing his desire to create a production company and start making films. For almost 90 years, nothing more was known: no reply was ever found and Régio never mentioned the subject again. The discovery of some old reels in a collector’s hoard seems to provide the ending to the story.

The Glory of Filmmaking in Portugal

2015

Demain? poster
2.0

The short life of the Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini is colourfully portrayed, not as a conventional biopic, but as a visual poem which evokes the turbulent life and complex personality of the literary heroine as she develops her genius for writing.

Demain?

2011

Times Are Changing, Not Me poster
NR

Manuel Mozos, the Portuguese director, talks about his films, cinema and Sam Peckinpah.

Times Are Changing, Not Me

2012

Ama Romanta: Uma Utopia que Fazia Discos poster
NR

In the second half of the 1980s, an Portuguese independent music publisher was created, Ama Romanta. It was the alternative to the hidden censorship of the big label industry and its founder was João Peste (the charismatic vocalist of Pop Dell'Arte).

Ama Romanta: Uma Utopia que Fazia Discos

2019

Rex Inutilis poster
6.0

Tiago is a final-year secondary school student who has failed to graduate twice. Despite praying to the divine, he will fail once again. Between lying to his benevolent mother and giving in to the temptation of a school trip with his girlfriend, Tiago is faced with making decisions. Tiago may not be a lost case.

Rex Inutilis

2013

2000s · 7 titles

The Heart's Root poster
6.0

Set in the Lisbon during the festivities of Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lovers and the old town. The story is about Cato, a nationalist politician who is charismatic and unscrupulous. He obsessively pursues Silvia, a mystical and mysterious young transvestite whom he meets at the festival. When Silvia runs into Vicente, a policeman who arrests transvestites and threatens them, Silvia must look towards blackmail to save herself. Compromising photos of Cato start to emerge among opposition parties and he must do all in his power to save his political career.

The Heart's Root

2000

Christmas Inventory poster
6.5

A family gathers to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Inventory

2000

The Portuguese Nun poster
6.6

A young French actress in Lisbon to shoot a movie is intrigued by a nun she sees kneeling in the chapel where she is filming.

The Portuguese Nun

2009

The Face You Deserve poster
6.1

Francisco, behave! I Know it's your birthday, you are thirty now, it's carnival, you've dressed as a cowboy for the school party and you are surrounded by kids you hate. But that's no reason to be so annoying... Francisco, repeat after me: "Up to your 30s you have the face God has given you. After that, you get the face you deserve".

The Face You Deserve

2005

O Capacete Dourado poster
5.6

The darkness of night, a barely lit place, motorbikes flirting with danger: a group of teenagers at a crossroads playing chicken with unaware passing cars. Jota (Eduardo Frazão) stands out from this group, unclassifiable; his destiny has no straight lines save those on the asphalt. Jota lives in permanent conflict with everything and everybody in his small town. No room for stillness. And then comes Margarida (Ana Moreira). Jota has no inside, Margarida has no outside. In spite of, or because of, that, they meet. What can they do? They can just ride, they can get away with it even if its all messed up. Love is to be lived.

O Capacete Dourado

2007

A Noite do Golpe de Estado poster
8.0

The operational commander of the "Captains Movement", describes and recreates a quarter of century later the crucial 24 hours of April 25, 1974, that would topple the Portuguese government and start a democratic regime in Portugal - since another military coup, May 28, 1926, installed a one-party dictatorship there. The scenes in the claustrophobic operation room are recreated, with him alone and a few voices.

A Noite do Golpe de Estado

2001

Veneno Cura poster
4.6

In oPorto there is a club, Imperatriz, where everything is permitted. A moment in which all intersect in the dark night.

Veneno Cura

2008

1990s · 3 titles

Behind the camera

José Cardoso Pires - Diário de Bordo poster
8.0

A documentary about the life and work of José Cardoso Pires. The information was gathered through a series of interviews made by the journalist Clara Ferreira Alves during autumn and winter of 1997 and also by people who were close to him.

José Cardoso Pires - Diário de Bordo

1998

Poor George poster
5.0

One night Jorge will meet with a Japanese industrialist, who will allow him to abandon his teaching position and resume his chemical work. However, when he gets home he finds a person there.

Poor George

1993

Lovely Child poster
7.1

Maria is a sweet child. She hasn’t father and doesn’t like her mother. She has a boyfriend, A bandit who would like to change his class.

Lovely Child

1990

Xavier poster
6.9

Xavier returns to Lisbon after a military stint, determined to lead a meaningful life, only to find his world closing in on him.

Xavier

1991

Xavier poster
6.9

Xavier returns to Lisbon after a military stint, determined to lead a meaningful life, only to find his world closing in on him.

Xavier

1991

Step by Step poster
6.6

Nogueira, a man in his fifties, is a relic of times long past. While the youngsters at the school where he works as a caretaker still think the world is their oyster, Nogueira knows that, for him, most doors have long closed.

Step by Step

1990

Step by Step poster
6.6

Nogueira, a man in his fifties, is a relic of times long past. While the youngsters at the school where he works as a caretaker still think the world is their oyster, Nogueira knows that, for him, most doors have long closed.

Step by Step

1990

Cinema Português? - Diálogos com João Bénard da Costa poster
NR

Through a conversation with João Bénard da Costa and his ideas about the Portuguese cinema, an interaction between the construction of the documentary and the sights and sounds clips from some movies is established. Despite the difficulties, the films continue to exist and to resist. Is it worth it? What would happen if they disappeared? Each viewer must find their answer. This film aims to be an approach to Portuguese cinema in its hundred years of existence, opening, hopefully, ways for their dissemination and making light for its knowledge.

Cinema Português? - Diálogos com João Bénard da Costa

1997

Cinema Português? - Diálogos com João Bénard da Costa poster
NR

Through a conversation with João Bénard da Costa and his ideas about the Portuguese cinema, an interaction between the construction of the documentary and the sights and sounds clips from some movies is established. Despite the difficulties, the films continue to exist and to resist. Is it worth it? What would happen if they disappeared? Each viewer must find their answer. This film aims to be an approach to Portuguese cinema in its hundred years of existence, opening, hopefully, ways for their dissemination and making light for its knowledge.

Cinema Português? - Diálogos com João Bénard da Costa

1997

Ruins poster
6.5

Fragments of spaces, buildings and structures, memories and remains of past eras, places of work or leisure now inhabited by our memories alone, or really forgotten. Dead things or living proof of time, natural elements, and human predators themselves.

Ruins

2009

Ruins poster
6.5

Fragments of spaces, buildings and structures, memories and remains of past eras, places of work or leisure now inhabited by our memories alone, or really forgotten. Dead things or living proof of time, natural elements, and human predators themselves.

Ruins

2009

The Face You Deserve poster
6.1

Francisco, behave! I Know it's your birthday, you are thirty now, it's carnival, you've dressed as a cowboy for the school party and you are surrounded by kids you hate. But that's no reason to be so annoying... Francisco, repeat after me: "Up to your 30s you have the face God has given you. After that, you get the face you deserve".

The Face You Deserve

2005

João Bénard da Costa: Others Will Love the Things I Have Loved poster
7.5

Director Manuel Mozos draws an intimate portrait of João Bénard da Costa, programmer, critic, actor and, for 18 years, director of the Portuguese Film Museum, who passed away in 2009.

João Bénard da Costa: Others Will Love the Things I Have Loved

2015

The Glory of Filmmaking in Portugal poster
6.2

On 18 September 1929, José Régio sent a letter to Alberto Serpa expressing his desire to create a production company and start making films. For almost 90 years, nothing more was known: no reply was ever found and Régio never mentioned the subject again. The discovery of some old reels in a collector’s hoard seems to provide the ending to the story.

The Glory of Filmmaking in Portugal

2015

Lisboa no Cinema, Um Ponto de Vista poster
6.5

The city during the beginning of cinema. The typical city at the time of the dictatorship. The New Lisbon of the New Cinema. Lisbon after the Revolution. The white city of foreigners. A geographical and moviegoer screenplay of Lisbon through the images of films and testimonies of several filmmakers who filmed in Lisbon.

Lisboa no Cinema, Um Ponto de Vista

1994

Sophia, In Her Own Words poster
9.0

Using the author's personal estate, current images of places where she lived or were dear to her, and archival images of television and film; using parts of her prose and poetry always with first-person testimonies; from Porto to Lisbon, from Granja to Lagos, from the Atlantic Sea to the Mediterranean, from Greece to 25 April: the passions and disappointments of a life and work dedicated to the search for the real, freedom and justice.

Sophia, In Her Own Words

2019

Sophia, In Her Own Words poster
9.0

Using the author's personal estate, current images of places where she lived or were dear to her, and archival images of television and film; using parts of her prose and poetry always with first-person testimonies; from Porto to Lisbon, from Granja to Lagos, from the Atlantic Sea to the Mediterranean, from Greece to 25 April: the passions and disappointments of a life and work dedicated to the search for the real, freedom and justice.

Sophia, In Her Own Words

2019

Aldina Duarte: Princesa Prometida poster
NR

A portrait of the unique personality of Aldina Duarte, a girlish lady, who sings the “fado” out of conviction and love. The film profiles her, unveiling her personality, travelling with her on a journey across her city, Lisbon, visiting the places that she most loves and knows so well, exposing herself as a free and open, generous and lively, innocent but wise woman, with the straightforwardness and a certain spice full of prudishness that are so identifying to Aldina Duarte.

Aldina Duarte: Princesa Prometida

2009

4 Hearts poster
6.7

Diana is a young woman about to enter adulthood. She lives with her father, Gabriel, a game machine dealer, and Magdalene, the stepmother, alongside those working in a hair salon in a shopping center. One day, Diana discovers that Magdalene not only keeps a secret relationship with Michael, the security center and instructor in the gym of the neighborhood, as resumed his old habit of playing. Not to allow the stepmother to his father do the same as her mother had done to her, Diana decides to intervene, approaching the Magdalene lover.

4 Hearts

2009

4 Hearts poster
6.7

Diana is a young woman about to enter adulthood. She lives with her father, Gabriel, a game machine dealer, and Magdalene, the stepmother, alongside those working in a hair salon in a shopping center. One day, Diana discovers that Magdalene not only keeps a secret relationship with Michael, the security center and instructor in the gym of the neighborhood, as resumed his old habit of playing. Not to allow the stepmother to his father do the same as her mother had done to her, Diana decides to intervene, approaching the Magdalene lover.

4 Hearts

2009

Crescei e Multiplicai-vos poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Crescei e Multiplicai-vos

2000

Crescei e Multiplicai-vos poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Crescei e Multiplicai-vos

2000

Ramiro poster
5.8

Ramiro is a bookstore owner in Lisbon and a poet in perpetual creative block. He lives, somewhat frustrated, somewhat conformed, between his shop and the tavern, accompanied by his dog, his faithful drinking companions and his neighbors: a pregnant teenager and her grandmother recovering from a stroke. He would gladly continue living this quiet and somewhat anachronistic routine if events worthy of a soap opera did not invade his bubble.

Ramiro

2018

When It Thunders poster
6.2

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.

When It Thunders

2000

When It Thunders poster
6.2

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.

When It Thunders

2000

Ashes and Embers poster
4.8

Certainly an outstanding case of beauty and mystery, this short film by Mozos creates a strange alloy of literature and cinema, and not in the way one discipline is a vampire for the other, but rather as if they were the different faces of the same coin, drawn to coexist and repel each other. As if every film belonged to a lonely species, Ashes and Embers shows a unique arrogance as it trembles, somewhat defenseless, with no certainty that the folds of fiction constitute any kind of survival guarantee for such strange objects. Memory and ghosts are two words that are easily said, but in this singular and very refined film they seem destined to become the ultimate goal of cinema, and its most endurable desire.

Ashes and Embers

2015

No artwork available
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

Cinema — Alguns Cortes: Censura

1999

Sobre as Armas e o Povo poster
NR

An addition to As Armas e o Povo (1975), filmed at the Lisbon Cinemateca in 2019.

Sobre as Armas e o Povo

2020

No artwork available
9.0

Synthesis of the first 110 years of the history of Portuguese cinema, made almost exclusively with archive material from the series of eight episodes History of Portuguese Cinema, produced by Pedro Efe in 1998, and combining excerpts from films with testimonies from some of the most prominent actors of the same story. It is attempted to relate it chronologically, and in spite of certain gaps, in an accessible, concise and didactic way.

Olhar o Cinema Português: 1896-2006

2007

Behind Those Walls poster
NR

A documentary by Manuel Mozos about the spaces that capture the narratives of the marginalized. Whether madmen or criminals, they are all those who existed delimited and separated: in forts, in prisons, in hospitals or asylums. Their time passed, but the spaces remain.

Behind Those Walls

2022

A Voz de Todos – Jornal do Fundão poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A Voz de Todos – Jornal do Fundão

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