João Canijo

Living Bad (2023)

A hotel by the northern shore of Portugal welcomes its guests over the weekend. A man is torn between being present for his wife and the space that his mother takes up between the two of them. A mother encourages her daughter's marriage to enable her own l ...

Bad Living (2023)

In a family-run hotel, by the Portuguese northern shore, lives a group of women from different generations of the same family, whose relationships with each other have grown poisoned by bitterness. They try to survive in the declining hotel, as the unexpec ...

Fojos (2020)

Castro Laboreiro, in the far north of Portugal, is a place whose hills lead to a dead-end street. They call it the end-of-the-world's pit. Men and wolves live abreast. Wolves leave their lair to freely attack the preys of men locked in their burrows. Both ...

Diary of Beiras (2017)

A journey through the Beiras region. The houses, the cafes, the streets, the people still living in them. What the lands were and are, and the testimonies of those still living there. The day-by-day of some of those people – less and less, and increasing ...

Fátima (2017)

The journey of 11 women while they go on a pilgrimage from Bragança to Fatima. ...

The Day of My Wedding (2016)

The film follows the adventures of a bride and her family on the verge of a nervous breakdown on her wedding day. ...

Portugal: One Day at a Time (2015)

A journey that begins in the far north of Portugal, and visits a dozen of villages and places in Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro. The houses, the cafés, the streets and the people who still live there. It is the picture of the day-to-day of some of these p ...

That's Love (2013)

In Caxinas, a fishing neighborhood in Vila do Conde, a city on the north of Portugal, the relationship between the fishermen and their wives is based on vital trust and reciprocal and absolute dependence, in order to assure their families survival. ...

Raul Brandão was a Great Writer... (2012)

This film is an attempt to disclose if Raul Brandão has left any trace, in Nespereira, Gumarães. ...

Obligation (2012)

In Caxinas, the relationship between the woman and the fisherman is founded on trust, born of their mutual and complete dependence, which is vital for the survival of the family. The wife and the fisherman trust and depend on each other, one to survive, th ...

Blood of My Blood (2011)

A regular family living in the outskirts of Lisbon sees the serenity of their lives shaken beyond any remedy within a week. ...

The Actor's Work (2011)

Throughout a year's work, a group of ten actors and a film director will work together on the creation of the characters and on the structure of the plot of a new film to come. Long sessions of discussion, rehearsals and endless repetitions serve to develo ...

Lusitanian Illusion (2010)

Images and sounds expose the duality of Portugal during the days of WW2: a peaceful, god-loving, rural country, providing an escape route for over one hundred thousand European refugees to the Americas; and a political and cultural elite that disguised the ...

Misbegotten (2007)

Lúcia is misbegotten, unloved and the eternal widow of her own father. A cry of rage in bodily form, she is mad, maltreated and humbled. She wears mourning in remembrance of her mothers crime and betrayal, and gives vent to her inconsolable pain to make s ...

Mãe Há Só Uma (2006)

A moment in the life of a grievieng mother with the identity crisis of her teenage daughter. The mother insists on wanting to understand what she only should accept, the daughter can not explain what should be accepted. ...

In the Darkness of the Night (2004)

A disturbing film about the Portuguese underworld of prostitution. ...

Fugas.pt (2003)

Get a Life (2001)

During one winter night, a Portuguese teenager, Alvaro, loses his life in a fight between a youth gang and the cops in a suburb of Paris. Cidalia, a 36 year old cleaning woman, his mother, decides to defy the code of silence of the Portuguese community and ...

Tarde Demais (2000)

A touching and tragic real life story about a group of Portuguese fishermen who get caught in the middle of a storm in the Tejo river (Lisbon) and struggle to survive. ...

Black Shoes (1998)

In today's Alentejo, a story of love and death based in a real criminal case. ...

The Convent (1995)

The journey of Michael Padovic, an American professor who arrives with his wife, Helene, at a Portuguese convent where he expects to find the documents needed to prove his theory: Shakespeare was born in Spain; not in England. ...

Lisbon Story (1994)

Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him. ...

Blind Man's Bluff (1994)

A blind beggar is robbed of his chest of money. The theft leads to a dramatic situation in the street where he begs every day. ...

Crystal Book (1994)

This European thriller, set in Sri Lanka, attempts to expound upon the philosophical implications of life, death, and memory. JB, an academic famed for his studies of oriental culture and alcoholic who has never recovered from his wife's suicide, returns t ...

Lovely Child (1990)

Maria is a sweet child. She hasn't father and doesn't like her mother. She has a boyfriend, A bandit who would like to change his class. ...

Crimes do Coração (1989)

Three Less Me (1988)

A young woman, working as sales-girl at a shopping center's music shop, wants someone with whom to share her secrets. A distant mother separating from her father, an aunt who emigrated to France, and her pre-adolescent sister, can't do - neither the boyfri ...

The Mountains of the Moon (1987)

This visually striking drama is taken from the classic Japanese novel Tales Of Genji by Marasaki Shikibu. Set in modern Portugal, Joao (Luis Miguel Cintra) is a left-wing political leader and ladies man with a bright future. His ex-wife Isabel (Manuela de ...

The Rose King (1986)

A mentally unstable woman and her son move to a sprawling mansion in Portugal to grow roses. ...

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 ...

No one Twice (1985)

Director Jorge Silva Melo has developed a viable, though highly intellectual mystery story about the world of art and culture and murder in this somewhat theatrical presentation. When German artist Bernd Hoffmann (Michael König) arrives in Lisbon to overs ...

Half in Love (1984)

In the White City (1983)

Fed up with the sea, Paul, a Swiss mechanic working in the noisy bowels of a merchant ship, lands in Lisbon. ...

The State of Things (1982)

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended (1956). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film. ...

Fim de Estação (1982)

O Pomar (2024)

West, end of the summer. Laura works at the pear harvesting, a family business. During the afternoon, Carol arrives at the village to spend a few vacation days with her friends. That night, when Laura catches them stealing pears from one of her father's or ...

The Day of My Wedding (2016)

The film follows the adventures of a bride and her family on the verge of a nervous breakdown on her wedding day. ...

Los Barcos (2016)

An actress travels to Lisbon representing a film where she has a secondary role, regarding nobody else was available to go. In the Q&A in the Cinematheque she doesn't know how to answer the audience questions. ...

Here in Lisbon (2015)

Welcome to Lisbon: there are mermaids by the Tagus and birds flying over the old city; there are mad scientists and singing fish; lost tourist guides and lost tourists; fado and sad guitars. What a weird city you may think - but no. Lisbon is about being d ...

Lisbon Story (1994)

Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him. ...

Step by Step (1990)

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. ...