João Lagarto

Portugal, 1968. Salazar, the fascist dictator who reigned the longest time in the world, falls from a chair and suffers a stroke. When he returns to the São Bento mansion to convalesce, he is no longer President of the Council. But no one tells him the truth: not his faithful housekeeper Maria de Jesus, nor his maids Aparecida, Socorro, and Teresinha, nor his personal doctor. For two years he lives under a meticulously constructed illusion, believing he is still President, until his death in 1970.

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A theatre having national as part of its name, at the top of a square, reflecting a country’s history. But which one? This is a voyage through the various narratives about D. Maria II National Theatre, forged through the intentions of the several regimes that intended to convey their own ideologies within the theatre’s mission. This is also the story of those who fought against it, opposed the institution and became part of it. How can one become heir of these stories, even if never having set foot inside.

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When their adopted son Nico is diagnosed with leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant, Alice and Tomás are driven into a desperate search for a compatible donor, while concealing the truth about his adoption. With no match within the family, they are forced to locate Nico’s biological father, leading them to Cris, an unsuspecting mechanic whose life is upended by the revelation. As Cris forms a bond with Nico and becomes his only hope for survival, tensions escalate between the biological and adoptive parents. Old secrets resurface, and an unexpected love emerges between Alice and Cris, putting custody, loyalty, and the very definition of family to the test.

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"Tony" traces the Portuguese artist's journey from childhood, where he dealt with hunger and poverty, to his years of immigration, the beginning of his career, and his struggle for success, until he was acclaimed as one of the greatest Portuguese romantic singers. A story of overcoming adversity, hard work, and love... The man who reinvented himself to achieve what he most desired throughout his life: a family legacy.

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Algarve, late 90s. Following the death of her grandmother, Milene - a strong young woman full of life despite a slight mental handicap - divides her life between her family of notables and a Cape Verdean family that keeps her going, whom she met when her grandmother died. The wind that whistles in the cranes plunges us into the world of two families against the backdrop of Portugal's recent past.

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S.Ó.S.”, by Bruno Soares, “Céu Aberto ou Espaço Limitado”, by José António Loureiro, and “Para Cá do Marão”, by José Mazeda, are three short films, all first works by their directors , shown as if they were a single film. What they have in common is the fact that they deal with crimes. Bruno Soares' film, with Marco Costa, Joel Branco and Carmen Santos, deals with a robbery in Lisbon, with the owner of the house confusing the robber with his son. The one by José António Loureiro, with Joaquim Nicolau, is about a man who leaves prison and has difficulty adapting. Finally, José Mazeda's, with João Lagarto, focuses on a dispute in Trás-os-Montes between a local and a Galician.

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When a boat loaded with cocaine sinks off his home island, Eduardo sees a risky but exciting opportunity to make money and fulfill impossible dreams.

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The story of Luizinha, a girl born into a very poor family who is given by her father to António, the richest man in town, to raise her. But the death of his wife leads António to marry Berta for the second time, and it soon becomes clear that the large family home is too small to accommodate both Luizinha and her stepmother. At the height of the conflict, António defends his daughter and Berta files for a contentious divorce. Shortly afterwards, she is found dead and António is accused of murder. But the truth that the court seeks to uncover may not be the most obvious one.

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A message of praise to the President concludes a Party assembly, sparking apotheotic applause. In the middle of the crowd inquisitive eyes of the State Police look for the slightest sign of dissent, and the ovation does not cease.

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Catarina embarks on a dangerous journey to find who made her mother vanish. The Torres family seems to be the obvious suspect, but within them there's Vasco, the love of Catarina's life. Two opposed sides connected by love.

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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…

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The story of Brazil’s first emperor, returning to Europe on board the English ship Warspite. The trip makes Pedro conquer his fears and face his life from a personal point of view. He goes back in time and relives outstanding moments of his earlier life – since his childhood, when in 1808 he arrived coming from Portugal with his family, until he left in the dead of the night, in 1831, running away from Brazil.

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After the murder of a local student, a small town judge faces an unexpected dilemma: now her actions can put her family at risk.

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Egas Moniz, a man marked by perseverance and ambition. Audacious and in dissonance with a country full of “narrow-minded” people, Egas Moniz faced everyone so as to impose his scientific ideas, for which he was awarded, at a quite advanced stage of his life, the much-desired Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949.

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Zeca was jailed for a crime he didn't participate, now he's free and while trying to make a new life he encounters a kid, surprisingly the boy is Ema's son, his long time lover.

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A theft of water, a homicide, a question of honour, a tragedy in the village of Gralhas, Montalegre.

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Can a turtle, the most pacific animal on earth, start a range of significant events that are going to forever change a couple's life? After dividing all their assets, Arnaldo e Barbara still have one decision to make before they formalize their separation: what to do with the turtle? Amongst hesitation and failed solutions, unintended burglaries, police stations, plastic natures and misunderstandings, a single turtle fate is postponing this couple's separation. Because they know that, when they give the turtle back to its natural habitat, their relationship will be over. Are they ready for that last step?

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Dreaming of great adventures and of standing up for his homeland, a young Portuguese man enlists in the army during World War I and is sent to the front line in Mozambique, Africa. Left behind by his platoon, he sets out on a grueling trek across the mystic Makua native land, walking for over a thousand kilometers, in search of his dream.

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Bruno Aleixo was invited to write a biopic about his own life. Lacking ideas, he decided to ask his closest friends for inspiration. Reunited in a cafe, each of his friends suggests a different idea, more or less biographical.

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Red Light is a TV series created by Patrícia Muller & directed by Marco Leão & André Santos about the true story of a group of women from Bragança that in 2003 rebelled against the presence of Brazilian immigrant prostitutes that were having a social and moral impact on the life of this small town.

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The film is liberally inspired by the period when Eça de Queiroz was Portuguese Consul in Cuba, when still a Spanish colony. Eça de Queiroz struggles against local authorities in his defense of Chinese workers, brought to the sugar plantations by greedy middlemen and exploited as slaves. Two parallel stories unfold, that of a Chinese girl which Eça de Queiroz saves from the clutches of one of the island’s most powerful slave owners, and the other of a romance involving a young American woman on holidays in Havana.

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George, an agoraphobic young woman, cannot go more than 522 steps away from her home. One day, a personal tragedy forces her to embark on a journey from Spain to her native Portugal. Along the way, George's whole world begins to widen…

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David envisions an unusual project, he tries to recreate the love between two women that can only meet through the Polaroid pictures he takes of them.

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The hypochondriac Sebastião and his not so normal family must save the country from the prime minister's plan of selling the country to China, Germany, France and Angola, and show that Portugal is not for sale.

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A historical fiction series that, from the biographies and cultural and civic intervention of the poet Natalia Correia, the editor Snu Abecassis and the journalist Vera Lagoa (pseudonym of Maria Armanda Falcão), recalls the last years of the Estado Novo (Second Republic) - 1961 to 1973 - from the beginning of the colonial War to the eve of the April Revolution.

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Inspired on the true events of the Portuguese king Don Pedro (14th Century) which unburied his mistress to make her queen after dead. This film tells the story of Pedro, a man admitted to a psychiatric hospital for traveling by car with the corpse of his beloved, recalling simultaneously three different lives: one from the past, another from nowadays and another one from an distopic future.

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A writer becomes the main character in the story he intended to write

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Between the mysterious Orient, the paradisiacal peninsula of Troia, the urbanity of Setúbal and the placid splendor of Alcácer do Sal, "Jogo Duplo" is a telenovela that will confront dysfunctional families, impossible loves and cultural differences, reflecting on the human condition in all its opposites.

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In an isolated village of the Alentejo region, a conflict arises. José Vitorino, one of the landowners of the region, rich in prehistoric monuments, wants to build a luxurious solarium in lands filled with ancient rocks, places of devotion and sacred rituals. Indifferent to the people’s protest, who believe in the magical powers of the stones and that the region’s drought is due to the rocks’ destruction, José Vitorino hires an architect to plan his new house. On christmas eve, in the middle of the winter solstice, a strange ceremony around a dolmen, once an altar for bloody sacrifices in more remote times, releases a harmful spell. A race against time to reverse the faulty charm begins.

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Before Dawn charts the years of exile in the life of famous Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, his inner struggle for the "right attitude" towards the events in war torn Europe and his search for a new home.

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At first sight, 10-year-old Benoît Brisefer, seems like any other little boy his age. However, Benoît is endowed with amazing force. All the bandits who cross his path learn this to their own cost. But, unfortunately, no one is perfect... As soon as he catches a cold, Benoît loses his extraordinary physical abilities. Hence he never takes off the woollen scarf wrapped around his neck. Brave and very determined, he doesn't hesitate a second to take action to defend his friends. So, when Poilonez - a well known crook - and his gang decide to focus on Mr. Dussiflard, his taxi driver friend, Benoît does all that he can to thwart his plans.

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