Movies: João Pedro Bénard

When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy -- the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in th...

1920s. Vitalino, a small farmer from São Vicente sees his father die of the epidemic which decimated the country. Some years later, of all the brothers, Vitalino is the strongest and takes his father’s place in the house. But the village is too small...

Lisbon, 1989. A middle-aged poor man, tormented by an illness, lives in a cheap room in a family boarding house, in the old section of the city's waterfront....

11th century. Descended from the aristocracy, Alexis flees a world dominated by money and strength. The young man, in love with justice and freedom, sets off on the roads to discover the world, abandoning his wife and family....

Alentejo, Portugal, 1950. In a desolate region, where the wind seems to speak, where misery and hunger reign over poorest, a desperate man takes his revenge on those who caused his ruin during the darkest night, unable to get honestly the bread neede...

Patrick, 20-years-old, lives in Paris with his older boyfriend. He runs a teenage pornography website, which results in a prison sentence following a raid at a party. Mário, 8-years-old, was kidnapped 12 years ago in Portugal. Patrick and Mário are t...

A man exiled in Paris makes various trips to Portugal after the Carnation Revolution. Each trip is represented by a woman....

Certainly an outstanding case of beauty and mystery, this short film by Mozos creates a strange alloy of literature and cinema, and not in the way one discipline is a vampire for the other, but rather as if they were the different faces of the same c...

A man, Francisco, works in an open-pit mine. He goes to see his boss about taking the following day off. At first the boss doesn’t want to allow it as there is so much to do, but he finally concedes. The next day his daughter calls on him, a visit he...

Roberto is one of those men to whom simulation has become the greatest art. He is an unmoved, inscrutable, mysterious man. But the truth is that Robert feels an intimate, deep tedium. The boredom of those who have already exhausted all the pleasures ...

Francisco, behave! I Know it's your birthday, you are thirty now, it's carnival, you've dressed as a cowboy for the school party and you are surrounded by kids you hate. But that's no reason to be so annoying... Francisco, repeat after me: "Up to you...

In 1917 Burma (now Myanmar), a British diplomat is set to marry his fiancée, but after a sudden panic, escapes to Singapore, sending her on what evolves into a chase across Asia....

Dora divides her time between her work as a beautician, her policeman husband António, and her involvement in left-wing politics. A tale of love and how we must learn to cherish it against all odds in the pursuit of happiness....

An old gunman travels the Alentejo in search of revenge, accompanied by the mute daughter of one of his targets....

Coming from Fundão to Lisboa where he did conscription service, Matias found that the reality of the big city is not exactly how he remembers...

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 advent...

Carolina, an aging local grande dame who works at a crossing point on the titular river, marries another late-in-life character, the dredging-boat operator Antonio. Not long after their union, she becomes intensely jealous of Antonio's fondness for t...

Nogueira, a man in his fifties, is a relic of times long past. While the youngsters at the school where he works as a caretaker still think the world is their oyster, Nogueira knows that, for him, most doors have long closed....

Xavier returns to Lisbon after a military stint, determined to lead a meaningful life, only to find his world closing in on him....

Paulo works as night security in a deactivated industrial complex. He lost his daughter in dramatic circumstances, and no regrets would console him. He sleeps at Luisa's house and witnesses the repeated transgressions of an unstable neighbour. Everyt...