Luís Lopes

The "Spirit World", a red diamond with supernatural powers, stolen five centuries before, of the hands of the last Aztec emperor, is the center of this adventure in a cursed house in the wilds of the Sintra hills. The heiress of the house, Filipa, enlists the help of our heroes in search of the precious stone, but there are many obstacles to overcome. Facing ghosts of Indian warriors, statues that come alive, bats, trap doors, secret passageways and a German fearsome killer seeking revenge, our heroes will have to gather all their strength and wits to reach the mythical diamond before it is too late.

Mozambique, 1969. What was meant to be a peaceful Christmas Eve ends up badly as a group of soldiers brings home a prisoner that will be murdered. Simultaneously, the Capitan's wife arrives in surprise, bringing along a Priest, who is supposed to celebrate the mass.

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.