Valerie Braddell

The Portuguese

In a time preceding the Carnation Revolution, we meet two men: one young, one old. One is fleeing the country, and the other helps him escape through Trás-os-Montes. While they make “the leap,” they speak about their lives and their troubles… This is an ode to those who fought for Freedom, and to these fifty springs that have passed. Throughout 13 performed songs, we travel across the country, hand in hand with several Portuguese people who tells us their stories through music, until we get back to this young man who runs away and returns to Lisbon, shortly after the Revolution, to reunite with his loved ones and live in freedom.

Could Have Waited For August

Xavier, a village boy, falls for Laura, neighbor's granddaughter who visits her grandfather annually. Despite flirting at summer dances, Xavier believes he has no chance with her.

Maria

Maria spends her daytime sewing and cleaning, while at night she works as a prostitute in Oporto's streets. Years ago her path crossed with José, a married man who became her most faithful client but who couldn't help her to escape the hard life. Today this old prostitute continues showing off her body through the long city's nights, though the clients are almost gone. José is still there, but he failed at what she desired the most: a son. In a very intimate and raw portray of a woman, MARIA disclosures how love and getting older can feels like.

Neighbors Forever

Anna Karenina

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.

Downfall

After an anonymous report, the former minister Álvaro Vieira Branco, under investigation for several crimes such as lobbying and misuse of powers, stays in home detention with an electronic bracelet. The report allows the criminal inspector, Gonçalo Schmidt, to finally investigate what they have suspected for so long: Álvaro Vieira Branco does not own personal nor familiar income to justify his high-quality level. Imprisoned in his luxurious mansion, Vieira Branco has to adapt his strategies to keep satisfying (mostly) the financial needs of those who surround him, while he tries to: get rid of the case, find out who is the whistle-blower and maintain his influence on the public sphere. To solve all of these, Vieira Branco counts on with his long-standing lawyer, David Rebelo Morais, current politicians and his trustworthy foreman, Zé Mário.

A State of Emergency

This story is about a crusading scientist out to stop nuclear testing who is motivated by scientific fact, conscience and faith. Dr. Alex Carmody (Martin Sheen) is a physicist who becomes convinced that if the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. continue to test nuclear weapons, eventually one of these tests will set off an atomic chain reaction that will obliterate the world. Carmody travels to Portugal where he tries talks to one of the women who in 1911 saw a vision of the Virgin Mary that spoke to her and her two companions about the future. Carmody is certain that the Virgin Mary predicted the very chain reaction he and his co-worker Dr. Kenneth Parrish (Peter Firth) envision. Failing in his attempt to talk to the woman, Carmody then travels to Paris and elsewhere, warning Soviet and American officials that the tests they are planning should be cancelled before they become their last.

We Are on Air

Thirty-something Vítor still lives with his mother, Fátima, in his grandmother Júlia’s apartment. Fátima is a hairdresser with a quiet disposition who, at night, fantasises about the policeman who has just moved in next door. By day, Vítor is a lowly employee on a TV show. But at night, he dons his neighbour’s uniform to win the favour and satisfy the desires of a boy he’s met online. In her retirement home, Júlia is unable to sleep at night and has long forgotten what drugs she is meant to be taking. She misses her dead husband, who manifests himself in the body of a living friend, and gets involved in her daily activities. Through these characters, Diogo Costa Amarante constructs a fascinating portrait of lives lived while desires remain unrealised.

Maluda

Inspired by the biography of the portuguese painter Maria de Lourdes Ribeiro, known as Maluda, who found the stage of her art in Lisbon.

The Left Behind

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.