Fernando Matos Silva

There is a photograph from 1937, the year of my parents wedding, taken at Sta. Isabel’s Church. In it, my grandfather José Rodrigues Vieira has a sad pose. He married his daughter and was politically dismissed by the State. He is an old republican, tormented and disappointed. Born in the village of Almeida he was at the Rotunda and at the proclamation of the Republic. The film «O Meu Avô Republicano», through its locations, images, photographs, films, press and propaganda draws the outlines of that time and the republican movement in which he was involved.

Open details →

One bad thing never comes alone, says the people. The village Estrela is threatened by the waters of the new Alqueva dam. It will become an "island". But, as one bad thing never comes alone, the daily lives of the inhabitants of this small mountain village are changed by the death of Adriano. "In order to create, I destroyed myself; I have so much externalized within myself that within me I exist only outwardly. I am the living scene where various actors perform various plays." (from Livro do Desassossego by Fernando Pessoa), as Adriano liked to quote Adriano. He committed suicide on the day of the village feast, hanging himself in the main square. For Adriano, the main square of the village has long been the center of the world. Adriano felt surrounded, depressed, unable to escape his destiny. "No one can stop a man who travels with suicide on his lapel" Adriano repeated to Lisete, always to the point of exhaustion.

Open details →

A documentary organized around the promotion of Indo-Portuguese cultural heritage, with commented pictures of the most striking examples of civil and religious architecture and housing areas marked by portuguese traditional construction. Patent portuguese memory in everyday's commercial and artistic life of Cochin, now the capital of Kerala state and surrounding regions of Cranganor, Calicut, Quilon and Travancore. The undisputed and recognized influence of Indo-Portuguese Catholic communities across the region.

Open details →

E NESTE NADA CABE TUDO is shot for television (already on video – thus exploring its plastic potential) and examines the work of the sculptor with a special focus on the famous and polemic 25 de Abril monument.

Open details →

Twenty years ago, Henrique left Portugal for the peaceful Netherlands. A colonial war veteran, he desperately wanted to get away from his country which still defended a doomed African empire and from his traditional, landowning family. He’s back now. Everything is different. «Europe» knocked on the door and sprawled itself fast. Even the South had to face wrenching changes. And Henrique himself will have to face many events. Love affairs and dangerous threats. And the chalenge of his future.

Open details →

Open details →

ALENTEJO, AS QUATRO ESTAÇÕES is a gorgeous essay on the landscapes of Alentejo, based on a beautiful text by Baptista Bastos, spoken by José Wallenstein.

Open details →

The story of a town—Miranda do Douro—and its inhabitants, victims of a catastrophe on May 8, 1762. Around 350 to 400 people died, houses were destroyed, and many were injured. The war, which was external to those people, victimized them in the worst way, through the unexpected - the accident. The city was an important military target, and its destruction was caused by an explosion in its stronghold...

Open details →

A dialogue between History and a Guerrilla Movement, interlaced with live footage taken in Portugal and Guinea-Bissau, when this country was the colony of the first.

Open details →

The daily experiences of many antifascists - who suffered, until the political prison, which sealed his esteem and united them in a covenant of justice against a "pide" assassin (eted). But the April 25 and May 1, to September 28 and March 11, follows the November 25 - striking dates a forthcoming story. Time caused the wear of the revolutionary process, exacerbating social and economic problems. In the intellectual groups of the left, where the ideological coherence flew over the everyday practice, is dug a crisis of identity and options. An early vote, perhaps radical, unites -still - a determined activist and a journalist who wonders ...

Open details →

Open details →

Film directors with hand-held cameras went to the streets of Lisbon from April 25 to May 1, 1974, registering interviews and political events of the Portuguese "Carnation Revolution", as that period would be later known.

Open details →

The Soares are a bourgeois couple, living in a good neighbourhood of Lisbon, but João, their son, is not integrating well in that pattern. He attends more political meetings than classes at the Faculty of Economy, and gets a job but that's short lived because his female boss makes him her lover. He longs for the coffee shops, and the companions of old, but he doesn't get true love from anyone.

Open details →

Documentary about the Portuguese Revolution of April 25th, 1974 which focuses on events like the siege of the Carmo quarters and the release of the political prisoners at Forte de Caxias.

Open details →

Produced by Francisco de Castro, to promote tourism in the beaches around Lisbon.

Open details →

A film on the work in the electric cable industries of Diogo d'Ávila in Alfragide.

Open details →

The school film of Fernando Matos Silva made in the London School of Film Technique. An adaptation of the homonimous tale of the writer Ray Bradbury.

Open details →

Film commissioned by Lisnave. Shot in 16mm

Open details →

Open details →

Ariel de Bigault's work has been connected to the routes of the Lusophone World. In Fantasmas do Império we are guided by the saotomean actor Angelo Torres through some works of the Portuguese cinema that explored its colonial past. Some directors as Fernando Matos Silva, João Botelho or Margarida Cardoso help to understand imperialism, colonialism, and propaganda seen through the "family album" which is the Portuguese cinematic collective imaginary.

Open details →

On April 25, 1974 the iconoclastic Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha was in Portugal. There, he joined the collective collective film "As Armas e o Povo". With his foreign and peculiar look, he broke the rules of conventional filmmaking.

Open details →

The Soares are a bourgeois couple, living in a good neighbourhood of Lisbon, but João, their son, is not integrating well in that pattern. He attends more political meetings than classes at the Faculty of Economy, and gets a job but that's short lived because his female boss makes him her lover. He longs for the coffee shops, and the companions of old, but he doesn't get true love from anyone.

Open details →

One bad thing never comes alone, says the people. The village Estrela is threatened by the waters of the new Alqueva dam. It will become an "island". But, as one bad thing never comes alone, the daily lives of the inhabitants of this small mountain village are changed by the death of Adriano. "In order to create, I destroyed myself; I have so much externalized within myself that within me I exist only outwardly. I am the living scene where various actors perform various plays." (from Livro do Desassossego by Fernando Pessoa), as Adriano liked to quote Adriano. He committed suicide on the day of the village feast, hanging himself in the main square. For Adriano, the main square of the village has long been the center of the world. Adriano felt surrounded, depressed, unable to escape his destiny. "No one can stop a man who travels with suicide on his lapel" Adriano repeated to Lisete, always to the point of exhaustion.

Open details →

Abel, 47 years old, two wars - in the colonies and France, emigration - several scars from many battles lost, returns in a jump to Portugal, to his lost village in the northern interior, near the border, from where one day he'd be gone, also from a jump. A letter, from his brother Peter, warned him that everything changed. Even Teresa. Abel catches sight of his childhood in the village hills, the old tribe. From a distance everything seams to be in the same placesa, the old dog is all that remains of the past. In the village the Act of Passion will be performed and Teresa is one of the participants. Abel takes the old gestures and prepares his plan: eliminate one by one Teresa's suitors, to consummate during the act of the Passion, her death ...

Open details →

Luís - ex-student in Lisbon and ex-combatant in Africa - finds, after returning, Maria, secretary who has a relationship with António. He lives in a palace with his children, two old aunts and a Dominican friar, a former missionary.

Open details →