João Botelho

Young Mr. Cunhal (2022)

The revolutionary Álvaro Cunhal, symbol of Portuguese communism and political giant of the 20th century. He is nothing less than a larger-than-life figure, now examined by João Botelho's camera, in a detective-minded film, in which the early years of the ...

Um Filme em Forma de Assim (2022)

Organized like a dream, structured like a musical and with texts, both spoken and sung, that lead us to unexpected, chaotic and exciting situations, which try to grasp part of what the unattainable Alexandre O'Neill left us. ...

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (2020)

Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest writers in Portuguese, created an immense parallel world and several heteronyms so as to endure the loneliness of genius. José Saramago, 1998 Nobel Laureate in Literature, has a heteronym, Ricardo Reis, return to Portu ...

Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira and Me (2016)

"An old photograph taken 36 years ago. His hand rests on my shoulder. A blessing, a gift. Then a history of over four decades of friendship, admiration and apprenticeship. A journey into Oliveira's cinema, his method, his way of filming and his extraordina ...

Nos Campos em Volta (2015)

O Som da Prata (2015)

A Arte da Luz Tem 20.000 Anos (2014)

Documentary about Vale do Côa. ...

The Maias: Story of a Portuguese Family (2014)

The tragedy and comedy in Carlos' life begins, grows and ends like the tragedy and comedy of Portugal. In the company of his close friend, João da Ega, allegedly a brilliant writer, Carlos, with his idle existence as an aristocratic doctor, spends his tim ...

Four (2014)

A look at the art of two pairs of brothers, plastic artists: João Queiroz, Jorge Queiroz; Pedro Tropa and Francisco Tropa. ...

La Valse (2012)

A choreographic poem by Maurice Ravel. ...

Anquanto La Lhéngua Fur Cantada (2012)

A documentary about the singings of a Portuguese Village that has their own dialect ...

Disquiet (2010)

Lisbon, today. In a room of a house at Douradores Street, a man invents dreams and theorizes about them. The essence of the dreams itself becomes physical, palpable, visible. The text itself materializes in its musicality. And, in front of our eyes, this m ...

Oh Lisboa, Meu Lar (2010)

A journey inside the tram crossing the city of Lisbon while listening to fragments of Fernando Pessoa's poetry. ...

Para Que Este Mundo Não Acabe! (2009)

"Come and see this world end!" - wrote the the priest António Fontes, father of folk medicine and "burning witches" in Vilar de Perdizes, a desperate plea in his precious monograph of the Barroso region. And I (João Botelho) went. Then I saw the people a ...

True and Tender is the North (2008)

Adaptation of a 1987 novel by Agustina Bessa Luis, a multi-generation exploration of a wealthy family with a mysterious past and a house on the island of Madeira. ...

A Terra Antes do Céu (2007)

Corruption (2007)

A crime drama based on the life of a woman who lived for years with a man that was the head of a corruption network in the Portuguese football world. ...

A Baleia Branca - Uma Ideia de Deus (2007)

Follows the creation of a stage play adaptation of "Moby Dick". ...

A Luz na Ria Formosa (2005)

The journey begins in the Roman ruins of Milreu in Portugal, where a mother reads to her son Seneca's advice on the importance of reading. It then takes them through villages and shores where light reigns. ...

The Fatalist (2005)

The complex relationship between master and servant is explored in director João Botelho's adaptation of Denis Diderot's popular novel Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître. As Tiago (Rogério Samora) drives his master (André Gomes) through the Portuguese ...

A Mulher que Acreditava Ser Presidente dos EUA (2003)

Alexandra Lencastre plays a woman who believes she is President of the U.S.A. ...

Who Are You? (2001)

Maria de Noronha, at 13 years old, suffers from high fevers and violent hemoptysis caused by a ruthless tuberculosis. To alleviate the pain, she gathers poppies from her garden and, at night, places them on her bed pillows. But the poppies have a devastati ...

Se a Memória Existe (2000)

A dozen of the revolutionary Army officers that played eminent parts in the change of political regime in Portugal, from a military dictatorship to a social-democracy, read a book to a young girl, describing in a poetic, yet realistic way, what happened in ...

Traffic (1998)

Young Jesus is taken on a vacation by his parents (Rita Blanco, Adriano Luz) to a deserted beach resort. They accidentally fall into overnight wealth after Jesus digs in the sand, uncovering a large drug stash. Others characters intersecting here include a ...

Three Palm Trees (1994)

Lisbon, on a winter day in 1994, between six and fourteen o'clock. A forty-year-old woman despairs in the last eight hours preceding the birth of her first child. ...

Here on Earth (1993)

Miguel (Luis Miguel Cintra) is lucky that his income will only level off if he neglects his business as a financier, and his wife and family will be well supported. Why? Because he has begun hearing noises that no one else hears, noises that bother him a g ...

No Dia dos Meus Anos (1992)

This Portuguese movie directed by João Botelho, is part of The Four Elements series. This is the second episode, The Air. ...

Hard Times (1988)

A film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Hard Times" set in a Portuguese industrial town of the 1980s. ...

A Portuguese Farewell (1986)

In Africa, during the colonial war, a patrol is lost in the bush and a soldier dies in operation. Twelve years later, in Portugal, the soldier family meets in peace. ...

Manoel’s Destinies (1984)

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 the gard ...

The Conversation Is Over (1982)

The film was to be a documentary, but evolved during production to a fictional film. It nevertheless adheres strictly to the poems and letters exchanged by two of the most outstanding names of the Modernist Movement, Fernando Pessoa (in Lisbon) and Mário ...

Alexandre e Rosa (1978)

A short film. ...

Blackpot (2023)

A reorganization within a crime syndicate. ...

Caos do Sodré (2022)

Fantasmas do Império (2020)

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 Fern ...

Acts of Cinema (2018)

Cinema and affections from life in images and what goes on outside the frame. 'Snapshots' of shootings and the present-day memory of directors, actors and technicians. ...

Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira and Me (2016)

"An old photograph taken 36 years ago. His hand rests on my shoulder. A blessing, a gift. Then a history of over four decades of friendship, admiration and apprenticeship. A journey into Oliveira's cinema, his method, his way of filming and his extraordina ...

Alexandre O’Neill - Tomai lá do O’Neill (2004)

A personal tribute to the poet Alexandre O'Neill by his dear friend Fernando Lopes. ...

Lisboa no Cinema, Um Ponto de Vista (1994)

The city during the beginning of cinema. The typical city at the time of the dictatorship. The New Lisbon of the New Cinema. Lisbon after the Revolution. The white city of foreigners. A geographical and moviegoer screenplay of Lisbon through the images of ...

The Satin Slipper (1986)

During the century of the Spanish Gold, Doña Prouhèze, wife of a nobleman, deeply loves Don Rodrigo, who is forced to leave Spain and go to America. Meanwhile Prouhèze is sent to Africa to rule the city of Mogador. Ten years later Rodrigo leaves America ...