Acting
No biography available.
After the Portuguese government demolishes his slum and relocates him to a housing project on the outskirts of Lisbon, 75-year-old Cape Verde immigrant Ventura wanders between his new and old homes, reconnecting with people from his past.
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.
It tells the story of Araci, a woman who saw her daughter murdered by ranchers. She emigrates to Mértola with her husband and their granddaughter, who will grow up without forgetting the indigenous rituals and teachings of Brazil.
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.
In the mid-20th century, a troubled relationship between Germana, a young writer, and Quina, her aunt who lives in the northern Portuguese countryside. Feelings of jealousy, admiration and the complex magnetism between these two strong women arise.
In 1974, after years of civil war, the Portuguese and their descendants fled the colony of Angola where groups working for independence gradually claim their territory back. A tribal girl discovers love and death when her path crosses that of a young Portuguese soldier. Meanwhile, another group of Portuguese soldiers is barracked inside an infinite wall from which they will have to escape once the past comes out of the grave to claim its long-awaited justice.
Through an acting game, the director's parents become movie stars to talk about the cancer they both overcame and the fear of loss.
A man is standing at the window, holding a chair. There are wafts of street noise, and occasionally the curtain flutters. A dog is barking. Then, elegiac music sets in, a lavish string arrangement of Billie Holiday's The End of a Love Affair. With this one-shot film, Pedro Costa portrays the state of feeling of the afterwards of a love affair which led nowhere.
"I've been on this cliff for almost a year, here on the lookout. Always aware of the sea and the enemy, even though I've never seen him. The man riding a horse gave me a new order, to be even more on alert, waiting for a mirage, for a ghost that will not come."
One sleepless night, Emília recalls a childhood trauma. Amidst the burning memories, she visits her parents, her sister, Manuel and all the places of her solitude.