Cleia Almeida

A hotel by the northern shore of Portugal welcomes its guests over the weekend. A man is torn between being present for his wife and the space that his mother takes up between the two of them. A mother encourages her daughter’s marriage to enable her own love affair with her son-in-law. Another mother lives through her daughter, preventing her from making her own decisions. Three families at the end of their cycles of acceptance.

At the age of 71, a highly regarded writer, José Cardoso Pires, suffers a major stroke and loses his memory and the ability to relate to the rest of the world. Everybody seems to defy the famous author to write another novel that recounts this adventure telling his "last story", the most conclusive of his career, the one of his accidental journey to the clear shadows territory.

A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week.

Throughout a year's work, a group of ten actors and a film director will work together on the creation of the characters and on the structure of the plot of a new film to come. Long sessions of discussion, rehearsals and endless repetitions serve to develop the most important scenes of that plot until it takes its ultimate form, in the film which results from this work.

Felizbela loves her husband with obsessive intensity, surrounding him with an explosive mix of passion and jealousy that will inevitably turn into hatred. To keep his attention, she stops at nothing, enduring suffering and humiliation in an attempt to win back his love. But Messias can barely conceal his growing disillusionment with life and his unspoken contempt for his wife. One day, Bárbara — Felizbela’s fragile and rebellious niece — bursts into their lives and upsets the balance: her cousin, her aunt, and above all Messias, who finally allows himself to be carried away by his emotions. Felizbela, however, refuses to give in — and will do whatever it takes to save her family.

What stops two people from being together? A third one. What stops one person from fighting for another? Nothing. Pedro lives in the suburbs, where he works with his father in a garage. Everyday he takes the bus downtown where he goes to school and meets his friends. It's summertime and they all go down to the river where they spend their free time or even their school time. Among joints, motorbike riding and swimming, everything seems to go well with this group of friends, until the moment when Pedro and his best friend find out that both of them like the same girl. Pedro finds himself inside a downward spiral, where everything around him seems to fall apart. Like a magnet attracts the iron, Pedro seems to attract problems, from the school until his relationship with his parents. This is the story of Pedro, who by having his head being pushed down so much learned how to breathe under water.

A philosophy-obsessed serial rapist stalks a university campus in broad daylight.

This remake of the 1940 film with the same name tells the story of a theatre company, its men and women in love, mistakes and misunderstandings. Chico loves Tatão, who is courted by Artur. Graça loves Chico, but doesn't know he loves Tatão. Santana writes a play for the Grandelinhas that will serve as a guide to Chico passion and convince Tatão that he is a rich count. The play is then staged and they all end up in prison.

Pê, a man with terminal cancer, wanders through his city, Lisbon. Throughout the day, he is confronted with a reality unaware of his suffering while he prepares his imminent death by writing a farewell letter to his daughter. When emptying her father’s house, the daughter discovers the letter. It is the beginning of a new encounter.

Vera, a single mother with two small children, is forced to have two jobs to survive after her children's father has disappeared. She works as a cashier at a supermarket by day and at night works in a strip club, trying not only to raise her children but also to pay off the debts that her ex-partner left her. Harassed in both jobs, one day she reacts violently when a nightclub client is more daring, being sentenced in court to perform community service in a nursing home, where her irreverence and youth will clash with the authoritarianism and inhumanity of the director. For the elderly who live in the nursing home, Vera is a breath of fresh air that little by little will change their lives, becoming the true home fairy…

This really happened, or so it is said. In 1840, a few years after the Portuguese Civil War, a young man arrived at a village by the Douro, carrying a book full of stories. Following the teachings of that book, the villagers of Granja do Tedo founded a social and religious movement that would last seven years, led by the healer Maria das Neves, self-styled “Third Eve, by Jesus Crowned”. The promotion of women’s role in society, the divulgation of naturism, solidarity with the poor and the expansion of free education were some of the movement’s demands. Maria Coroada, Crowned Maria, tells us of the ability to converse with the gods that live inside of us, of the courageous search for voices that transcend us. It also tells us of a book’s power to transform a whole community. And of the beauty of that transformation.

The journey of 11 women while they go on a pilgrimage from Bragança to Fatima.

Mar Salgado is a story of a woman who had 2 twins and thought they died after the were born, but it couldn't be more far from truth, and now 16 years later she'll try to find them.

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A family by force... Paulo and Susana have been together for a few years now and decide to take the next step in their relationship by moving in together. But, as they're signing the deed to the house, her father, who was supposed to bring the check, ends up delivering the bad news that there is no money for the house, thus ending this young couple’s dream. However, Artur doesn’t want to come off as a bad parent, so he offers his attic to them so that they can start their life together. So, Paulo’s dream turns into an absolute nightmare, as their life as a couple is, in fact, shared with seven other people who are all very different from them and will start controlling their every move in a permanently tense environment. The Mata family, as it turns out, is all insane, the only exception being Susana. And even her will have a hard time convincing the rest of the family to accept and welcome their new member.

The pilgramage of 11 women in 9 days and 400km to Fátima.

At the center of this story is Aurora Guerra, a popular actress who became a star in the teen series "The Chosen Ones" at an early age. Irene and Julio, Aurora's parents, signed her up for a casting several years ago and the matriarch, realizing that the decision was between her and another girl, managed to play the casting director in Aurora's favor. Lúcia has the same dream: to be a successful actress and decides to apply for the casting as well, but she soon realizes Irene's scheme and decides to confront her. After a violent argument between the two, Lúcia ends up having an accident that almost took her life and killed her chance of becoming an actress, due to the physical disabilities she was left with. Twenty years later, Lucia is determined to take revenge. The young woman wants to get back what she believes Aurora has taken from her, far from imagining that she is just a victim of Irene's evil deeds.