João Melo

A boy and a girl fall in love. But on the night they met, she was drunk and stoned and he took advantage of her. Although she does not remember almost anything from that night, she remembers something that may compromise their relationship.

Poor and tired, Amaro finds himself in the need of moving. Along the way he takes part in conversations that make him reflect on his changing position in society and on the anxieties of a young adult.

According to Sigmund Freud: “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways”. “Umbral” materialises the moral dilemma of whether there is a cause and effect link between trauma and criminal behaviour.

In a digital age where everything is fast and efficient, human beings are unable to develop meaningful relationships. Lia, an unconforming young woman from this well-formed society, struggles with the loss of her father and finds herself in a depressive state. After receiving an offer that promises to solve all her problems, Lia will have to make a choice: the comfort of the virtual world, in which she will have total control over her life or the real world with the virtues and difficulties inherent to everyday life.

A mysterious shadow unveiling a female figure walking naked towards us in the desert. In another sequence, the same woman speaks on the phone, talking about the end of the world. In a third moment, a couple prepares breakfast in their apartment, with the same woman from the previous sequences embracing a baby. What will these three narrative moments have in common? What is the relationship between them? Everything and nothing. Is the answer in the woman’s emotional words on the phone? Or in her helpless expression when walking naked? Or in the happiness she seems to find in the domestic routine? Perhaps the charm is really not in trying to decipher, but in getting lost in this visual and impressionistic poem, this shake that slowly expands in our senses. Max Planck, one of the founders of the ancient quantum physics theory, said that energy has a discontinuous structure and can only exist under the form of fragments. These are the fragments that hide here an ethereal promise.

This is the story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a man of conviction who saved 30,000 lives during WWII, in June 1940. Among them were10,000 Jews. As the Portuguese General Consul stationed in Bordeaux, France, he issued 30,000 visas for safe passage to Portugal. He defied the direct orders of his government and exhibited courage, moral rectitude, unselfishness, and self-sacrifice by issuing visas to all refugees regardless of nationality, race, religion or political opinions.This narrative film expresses his heroic actions towards humanity, which will perpetuate his legacy of justice for a new generation. In 1966, Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations. He is considered to have achieved the largest single rescue operation of World War II.

In a community recently shaken by a local tragedy, 12-year-old João and his alcoholic father make a living from fishing. However, the effects of climate change on the business, the ghosts of their past and the father's increasingly erratic behavior could lead to their separation. It is in the next-door neighbors that João meets an unlikely family that could be his only hope for a different future.

From Manet's painting – Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe – two women and two men slip from the timelessness of the museum into our present day. They have come to picnic and enjoy a pleasant swim in the river. The men approach them and, with little attempt to conceal their aggressive libidinous intentions, threaten the happiness of the moment, the serenity of the place, and the integrity of the bathers. This fragment of Eden and everything around it is inhabited by a naturalized social violence...

Film biography dwelling on the hectic artistic life of António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop rock singer from the 80s, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984.

An ascetic nurse working in palliative care tries to overcome her fear of death and loneliness while her mother fights for her life after a sudden illness.

Maria spends her days working in her family’s noisy metal factory. While being oppressed by male violence, she is also responsible for caring for her sister-in-law and niece, both existentially depleted. A revolution starts to boil within her.