The Fifth Empire

Portugal managed to get through all of World War II without firing a single shot. Caught in a vise between the Axis and the Allies, Antonio Salazar, the country’s strongman, used every trick in the book to get his country through unscathed. In this war of nerves in which anything went, the Portuguese dictator took brilliant advantage of the only weapon available to maintain his country’s independence: neutrality.

A ghostly meeting with Luís de Camões, the one-eyed adventurer, widely considered Portugal’s greatest poet. Luís de Camões is considered Portugal’s national poet, an equivalent to England’s Shakespeare or Spain’s Cervantes. João Lopes’s film takes us on an otherworldly journey to Camões’s five-hundred-year-old epic Os Lusíadas, which he composed in Macau whilst he was stationed in the colony.

Spain, 1519. Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese navigator in the service of King Charles I, undertakes, at the command of five ships, a commercial expedition to the Moluccas. The story of the first circumnavigation of the world, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522.

Episodes from throughout the entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a conscripted student of history recounts them to his fellow soldiers while they march through an African colony in revolt during 1973.

In 1336, Pedro, heir to the Portuguese crown, marries Constanza Manuel de Villena, a Castilian noblewoman, for political reasons; but the impulsive prince ends up giving in to his love for Inés de Castro, his wife's lady-in-waiting.

In the 16th century, young and ambitious Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães rebels against the power of King Manuel I, who doesn't support his dream of discovering the world. He persuades the Spanish Crown to fund his bold expedition to the fabled lands of the East. The voyage is exhausting beyond expectations, with hunger and mutiny pushing the crew to their limits. Upon reaching the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, Magalhães' mind changes. He becomes obsessed with conquest and conversion, which sparks violent uprisings beyond his control.

In Portugal, during the night of April 24-25, 1974, a peaceful uprising put an end to the last government of the Estado Novo, the authoritarian regime established in 1933 by dictator António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970), paving the way for full democracy: a chronicle of the Carnation Revolution.

Documentary about the life and work of Mário Eloy, one of the greatest painters of the second generation of modernism in Portugal.

A Aldeia mais Portuguesa de Portugal

A portrait of Amália by herself. Her personality, experiences, daring, songs, joys and sorrows and a journey that took her all over the world, are told here through moments when Amália crossed with the history of radio and television and public.

O Capitão que Quase Enganou a Tristeza

The Blood of Patriotic Souls

The romance of a couple set in the time of Juan Manuel de Rosas with a federal corporal serving as a link.

A recreation of a World War II incident which occurred in London's Bethnal Green underground station in 1943, in which 173 people died when a panicked crowd stampeded as they were hurrying down the steps to take refuge from an air raid.

A notebook falls into the hands of a young journalist, where he finds memoirs about his grandfather, who died in the civil wars of the early 20s. The writing does not correspond to the family legend woven about the grandfather. The young man tries to restore the truth.