Beneath the harvest sun and the cicada song, Mónica Martins Nunes builds a touching portrait of Serra de Serpa, an arid region in the south of Portugal affected by rural exodus. The poems sung by the shepherds and market traders resonate like the last gesture of a human landscape which resists sinking into oblivion.

Based on one of the short stories from the "Decameron", "The Convent Gardener" mirrors the story of Young Gardener Masetto and presents, in two separate parts, the story of a young man and a young woman who pretend to be mute in order to get a job as a gardener in a convent inhabited by several women and several men, respectively. Because the young gardeners are mute and, therefore, assumably unable to reveal the secrets of the convent’s residents, all the women living there take action to sleep with the young man just as all the men do to sleep with the young woman.

Since 2015, the Landless Workers Movement has been occupying an indebted sugarcane factory's land to press for its redistribution through land reform. Grandma, P.C. and their encamped fellows struggle to conquer a small share of land where they can settle down and live a self-sustainable life, growing agro-ecological crops in a newly knit peasant community they draw in their dreams.

In summer, the Portuguese countryside is ravaged by fires. Otilia struggles between her job as a pool cleaner and the need to take care of her mother alone. Stunned by this suffocating daily life, the flames awaken in her solitude, despair and the desire to escape.

Ana is spending the holidays with her family. The setting is perfect for relaxation and for wondering. Next to the house, workers are building a pond. Attracted by it, Ana senses a presence, someone familiar yet still unknown. Alexander David captures on screen all the beauty of a childhood self-discovery and the first uncertain steps taken outside of parental control. Evocative and mellow, Water Hazard explores queer identity with a delicate and empathetic eye.

Márcia is a social media pro and knows all the best poses and filters for perfect selfies. Her son Flávio helps her to take photos of herself. This is how she manages to hook up with famous rapper Da Reel Chullz on Instagram. She is not about to turn him down when he asks her out on a date – even if no one can be found to look after Flávio. A refreshing portrait of a single mother who knows how to work things out.

On a secluded island lives an autonomous community of children who don’t speak, communicating only in gestures. Guided by the eldest among them, they operate like an agrarian commune with strict rules and beliefs. Adults are banished into the surrounding woods, and every year, the oldest member of the village is sent to jump off a cliff – a ceremony that is believed to bestow eternal youth on the chosen one. This way of life is threatened when one adventurous child heeds the call of the forbidden forest.

In an ominous Lisbon courtyard where the last executioner of the kingdom once lived, an accident is waiting to happen. After a patient game of who's observing who, four characters will collide with dire consequences. Inspired by the novel The Damned Yard by Nobel Prize-winning Bosnian writer Ivo Andrić, this is a masterclass in slow cinema, a pure 16mm cinematic pleasure by André Gil Mata.

T. S. Eliot ends one of his most famous poems, "The Hollow Men", by repeating three times the sentence "This is how the world ends" - and then adding: "Not with a bang but a whimper."

From archival images, an improbable story is woven of a boy who couldn't stop crying, creating both floods and paradises.