José Pinto

The Life of Mirrors is one of the sections of the exhibition Luis Miguel Cintra - Small Theatre of the World. A commission by Serralves Foundation to Regina Guimarães and Saguenail, and constructed after an unpublished interview with Luis Miguel Cintra, this film is the result of a long and painstaking exercise of selecting and editing excerpts from films by Manoel de Oliveira in which Cintra participates as an actor. In this way, The Life of Mirrors is a reflective, retrospective essay film, which opens the Carte Blanche, thus establishing a gateway to Luis Miguel Cintra's cinematographic and cinephile career.

Alentejo, Portugal, 1950. In a desolate region, where the wind seems to speak, where misery and hunger reign over poorest, a desperate man takes his revenge on those who caused his ruin during the darkest night, unable to get honestly the bread needed to feed his family in the daylight.

A satire on anti-communist paranoia in the days of fascist dictatorship in Portugal. The series follows the adventures of the "Lusitanian superhero", the ultra-patriotic Captain Falcão, a man who follows the direct orders of António de Oliveira Salazar in the fight against the "red menace".

The story of an old man who does not settle for being abandoned by his own son in a hospital, venturing with the company of a rebellious teenager in a long and troubled way in search of the family, in which will also find a new life.

In a society controlled by the SYSTEM, a Nazi variant of Big Brother limiting citizens privacy, João falls in love with Leonor, a persecuted Jew. The vigilant inspector who watched them, decided to let them in freedom, reconciling with his past: he was the grandfather of Leonor.

The most famous duo of Portuguese superheroes are called once again to the office of Fascist PM António de Oliveira Salazar. Turns out communists are trying to invade the Natural History Museum. What do they want this time around?

Old Monteleone lives alone in a house littered with the relics of his past life in the circus. He hasn't worn his clown suit in years, but now he has good reason to. Today he'll wear his old makeup one last time.

The story of a man who sees his life change radically upon confronting his progressive loss of memory. As his neurological condition advances, it affects not only his own life but the lives of all those who surround him.

Somewhere on top of a mountain, there is a miraculous cave: it is the PARIDEIRA. Tells the legend that if an infertile woman enters there, she becomes pregnant out of the cave. But for that to happen, an adult must die within that night.

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese countryside to an unspecified destination, the traveling pair embark on a series of highly philosophical discussions. Flowing with tales of his life in the military and previous sexual escapades, Tiago trades a series of tales with his rapt passenger, including the story of a vengeful spurned lover who plots revenge on the nobleman who rejected her by transforming a prostitute into a society lady and convincing him to marry the tainted bride.

Based on a the short story "Low Flying Aircraft" by J.G. Ballard and set in a near future where humans are dying breed. Judite and André flee to a semi-abandoned apartment complex to protect their mutant child from certain death.

An urban family inherits an old country house located in a small village. Upon their arrival they try to adapt to the new lifestyle, but they soon learn that the village is overshadowed by superstition and mysterious folklore. As they are plagued by strange events, they learn more about the history of their family, and slowly begin to believe by inheriting the house, they also inherited a curse.

Once there was a boy who was afraid of the dark. One day, while playing on an abandoned factory's roof, he let a valuable belonging fall through a gap between the tiles. Going into the factory means facing his phobia and, inside, a beast's gaze awaits.

A wealthy landowner, "The Dauphin," enjoys a decadent life of hunting, drinking, and womanizing. He oversees his estate, the Laguna, with his barren wife, his one-armed manservant, and his treasured guard dog. When a sportsman (the film’s narrator) comes to the estate for his annual duck-hunting excursion, he discovers the body of the landowner’s wife floating in the lagoon and the manservant dead on his master’s bed. The Dauphin and his dog are nowhere to be found except for the mysterious barking sounds heard over the lagoon.

No synopsis available yet.

A true story of a doctor and his wife who went on a journey in order to prove that discoverer Christopher Columbus was in fact Portuguese. Inspired by the book "Cristóvão Colon Era Português".

Maria de Noronha, at 13 years old, suffers from high fevers and violent hemoptysis caused by a ruthless tuberculosis. To alleviate the pain, she gathers poppies from her garden and, at night, places them on her bed pillows. But the poppies have a devastating effect. Her deep sleep is invaded by ghosts and hallucinations: the luxury and decadence of the Portuguese 16th century. A broken nation, occupied by strangers.

The story of Father Antonio Vieira, a 17th-century Portuguese priest who lived in Brazil and worked for better treatment of the Indians and to abolish slavery.

Joana, 40 years old medical phychiatric, is married to Paul, an executive of a large financial company. Paul hopes that Joana fulfils her role and follows his constant social influences demonstrations. But the marriage is profoundly altered when Mónica, a young model, enters Joana´s life. Irresistibly attracted, they involved romantically, in a world of liberating experiences and feelings. But this will be a short trip, since the revelation of this affair forces Paulo to take drastic measures... ~ FICA

Twenty-five years after leaving school, a group of former students decide to organise a reunion. But, contrary to expectations, these "old boys" realise that time has accentuated their differences. The atmosphere is tense, the conversation taut and the old grudges resurface in no time.

A summer film. About summers. Two seasons splitting it apart by half a dozen years, the youth years – time it takes its characters to realise they’re getting lonely. Hellish summer ends and we’re on a little fishing village, river-side, in Lisbon’s south bank: people make life-changing decisions.

An intriguing story about a family and a manor house (where some terrible crimes were committed in the past by a member of that family) adapted from a novel with the same title by Tabajara Ruas.

Concerns an Irish woman, Cathy (Pauline Cadell), who dearly loves her Portuguese lawyer husband, Pedro (Rui Morisson); however, unbeknownst to her, he engages in one tryst after another. Cathy soon finds herself trying to help a young delinquent get off heroin, while the youth's desperate mother joins a weird religious cult. In other segments, an elderly man is nearly driven mad with grief at the loss of his granddaughter in a train station, while a down-and-out jeweler ushers the young girl to a hotel room.

A young woman and her son runaway from their hometown to escape civil war. Nothing is left from the world they knew and the only thing they have is each other.

An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.

Ema is a very attractive but innocent girl, so pretty that cars crash in her presence. In her youth she marries Dr. Carlos Paiva, her father's friend, to whom she is not attracted. They move to the valley of Abraham. Carlos loves her, but decides to sleep in a separate room to avoid waking Ema when he has to return late at night. As time goes by she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so she finds a new lover.

Manoel is an aging film director who travels with the film crew through Portugal in search of the origins of Afonso, a famous French actor whose father emigrated from Portugal to France and in process remembers his own youth.

Young Jesus is taken on a vacation by his parents (Rita Blanco, Adriano Luz) to a deserted beach resort. They accidentally fall into overnight wealth after Jesus digs in the sand, uncovering a large drug stash. Others characters intersecting here include an alcoholic actress, a philandering banker, a general trafficking in arms, priests who close their church and head north as hitchhikers, politicians who watch an all-girl production of Julius Caesar, and beggars who recite a children's story in a huge heap of trash.

Armando, the only grandson of an old worker of Salinas de Aveiro, studies music in France and any news from him is scarce. The grandfather Abilio then decides to send him a letter announcing his death and Armando rushes to return.

A woman takes her young son, leaves her husband and moves in with her lover. The boy, desperate to get his parents back together, becomes convinced that if only he can get his father's stolen motorcycle back everything will be fine again, so he sets out to get enough money to buy his father a new one.

In the forties, in a little settlement lost amidst the mountains of Trás-os-Montes, Leonardo tries to survive by buying and selling marten and fox furs, dreaming of the day he’ll close a big deal.

Lúcia is an independent woman who lives alone in Lisbon. Her father commits suicide leaving her a message on phone recorder, revealing a letter he wrote. However Lúcia can't find it in her father's house. On that visit she ends up meeting with her mother, a known political activist with whom she has a distant and tense relationship. In hope of finding the letter, Lúcia leaves to the farm where she grew up, on an isolated location. There she reencounters Álvaro, an old childhood companion, who shares a little life time he has left between roses and the piano, and the guardian angel that follows and protects her through nocturnal wanderings.

Two simple, unassuming, apolitical men have their lives changed forever when they find themselves hunted by agents of the ruling dictatorship.

In order to make some much-needed cash for himself, 65-year-old Portuguese prison inmate Eugenio impersonates a young woman and begins a romantic correspondence with a lonely Portuguese truck-driver living in Boston, convincing him that her tragic life has culminated in financial dire straits so he will send money. At first Eugenio's sister Idalina assists him in creating the character of Maria da Luz. Touched by her sweetness and apparent loving nature, the trucker willingly sends her money. When Idalina starts fearing they will be caught, she backs out of her arrangement with Eugenio who then convinces his young cellmate Vasco to help write the letters and even sends a picture of himself at age seven to "prove" that Maria has a young son. As prison life exacts an increasingly heavy toll upon Eugenio's health, his feminine alter-ego helps sustain him.

Joe Valente, a luso-american, returns home with the dream of turning molice picking into a real industry. But this will cause misery for those who use the traditional methods.

The young Rui Ramos constantly turns his life into amazing dreams due to the influence of novels, comic-books and movies.