Sandro Aguilar

The Seasons (2025)

A journey through the real history and the tales of a region in southern Portugal and a portrait of the people who have lived there, weaving together accounts of rural workers and field notes of archaeologists, amateur footage and scientific drawings, lege ...

Ouro e Cinza (2025)

Searching for redemption, a mother and a daughter go beyond their limits to break free from their comfortable but suffocating lives. A narrative of hallucinogenic qualities, pierced by moments of clarity. ...

Bad for a Moment (2024)

A team-building event goes wrong and brings the owner of an architect studio face-to-face with the lower-class neighborhood that his company is gentrifying. ...

Exotic Words Drifted (2023)

"As I watched you, exotic words drifted across the mirror of my mind like summer clouds across the sky. ...

Toll (2023)

Suellen is a toll booth attendant who starts using her job to help a gang of thieves steal watches from people driving to the coast. But only for a noble cause: to send her son to an expensive gay conversion workshop. ...

Sonido: Ivans & Tobis (2023)

Several children are subjected to an exhaustive sound experiment. Tested through a long and insensitive questionnaire, they are victims and witnesses of different manifestations of violence. Ivan, one of the children, overcomes everything by mysteriously t ...

O Natal do Bruno Aleixo (2022)

Bruno Aleixo has an accident the week before Christmas, leaving him in a coma. However, doctors are unanimous: they do not give a physiological reason for this comatose state, so they conclude that it is of a psychological nature. Bruno Aleixo, an assumed ...

Índia (2022)

Tiago, a tour guide with a broken heart leads Karen, a grieving and aging Brazilian woman, around a Lisbon of strange suicidal heroes. Tiago lives with his father, Raul, an old sailor haunted by historical defeats, and with his son, Manuel, a teenager fant ...

Pedro, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (2022)

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 � ...

Worth Your Weight in Gold (2022)

Oscar, a renowned hypnotherapist, uses the last moments in his hotel room to say goodbye to the vertiginous Mercedes and rid old Norberto of his bitterness. ...

2nd Person (2022)

One day, an old water pipe caused a ceiling leak. On this ceiling, toxic mushrooms of the order Polypo- rales would grow. Sitting on the toilet, the lady of this house looks up and observes that magical and mys- terious fungus, which is not an animal, nor ...

The Detection of Faint Companions (2021)

Full moon. Inside. Perhaps not alone. ...

Oso (2021)

A bear is sighted somewhere in the northwest of Trás-os-Montes. The animal causes a natural uproar, but his existence seems to be called into question by some. ...

The Tsugua Diaries (2021)

Crista, Carloto and João are building an airy greenhouse for butterflies in the garden. The three of them share household routines, day after day… And they are not the only ones. ...

Hotel Royal (2021)

'In the course of my cleaning duties, I examined the belongings of each guest of the hotel and observed through the details, lives that will remain unknown', says the temporary Chambermaid in a large seaside hotel, which, unable to communicate, lives throu ...

Bengali Variation (2021)

A young female poet and journalist decides to look for her childhood love, a perpetual student who gets mixed up with oppressive gambling debts. The lovers unintentionally play a game of hide and seek through the crowded maze of Calcutta in an effort to re ...

A Yellow Animal (2020)

Obsessed with questions about his past, a bankrupt, white Brazilian filmmaker undertakes an epic journey from Brazil to Mozambique and Portugal. This melancholic fable mixes animation, live-action, voice-overs, genres, and continents to explore Brazil's co ...

Armour (2020)

Hector's father just died. His girlfriend just left him for an older man and returned to her parents' home, taking their eleven-year-old sons to meet her "new" father. Hector is drunk and is wearing light cavalry armor borrowed from an ambulance driver he ...

Nha Mila (2020)

After fourteen years away from her homeland, Salomé is forced to return to Cape Verde to see her dying brother. During her stopover at Lisbon airport, Águeda, a cleaning lady, recognizes Salomé as "Mila", her childhood friend. Águeda invites Salomé to ...

Bruno Aleixo's Film (2020)

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. ...

Technoboss (2019)

The start of Luís Rovisco's old age isn't exactly cheerful. Already in his sixties, he's still roaming the country by himself, carrying out his tasks — increasingly less real — as sales director for the company SegurVale. Sadness, resignation? Not wit ...

Breeding Ground (2019)

From Sunday to Sunday, the Arcozelo football field is battered by the North wind. The lawn has to be swept and lots of clothes washed. - The boys are coming! - The two equipment managers, São and Cunha, know the name of the little players. Everyone is tak ...

Patrick (2019)

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 the s ...

Frankie (2019)

When a terminally ill French actress decides to spend her last vacation with her large family in Sintra, her relatives grapple with their own insecurities. ...

Black Sun (2019)

Underscored by French film legend Delphine Seyrig's evocative recitation of a Henri Michaux poem, Maureen Fazendeiro's film is a mysterious, multi-textured portrait of eclipse spectators in Portugal. ...

Il Sogno Mio d'Amore (2018)

For two years, we filmed in an ancient convent of the seventeenth century, which houses the Conservatory of Music of Lisbon. Moved by our love for this anachronistic place, for the music that is played there and for the richness of its teaching, Il Sogno m ...

Empire Hotel (2018)

The Empire Hotel is a 30-year-old landmark in Macau's old quarter, inhabited by characters with their own stories and struggles. It is also Maria's home. One day, the burden of keeping lives together and the hotel standing falls on her shoulders. A young m ...

How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal (2018)

Lisbon, Portugal, 1927. The writer and journalist Fernando Pessoa accepts from his boss the commission to create an advertising slogan for the drink Coca-Louca; but conservative government authorities consider the new drink as revolutionary as it is diabol ...

Sara F. (2018)

Rute is a teenager like so many others: she goes to school, she has swimming lessons, she likes watching films and specially she loves to be online. Rute is almost always on her phone or using her computer. But Rute has a secret nobody knows: Rute is recei ...

Equinox (2018)

I think I'll remember you, everything, but I'm not sure. ...

Ramiro (2018)

Ramiro is a bookstore owner in Lisbon and a poet in perpetual creative block. He lives, somewhat frustrated, somewhat conformed, between his shop and the tavern, accompanied by his dog, his faithful drinking companions and his neighbors: a pregnant teenage ...

Mariphasa (2017)

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. Everything t ...

Far From Amazónia (2017)

In 1783, naturalist Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira travelled to Amazonia. Centuries later, all that remains from his Philosophical Journey are the artifacts belonging the tribes he studied and the animals and plants he brought over to Portugal, evoking a dis ...

Coup de Grâce (2017)

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 no lo ...

Eldorado XXI (2017)

The panoramic shots are breathtaking: a majestic mountain landscape in winter, flat-roofed tin shacks cowering next to one other, women perched on steep slopes using primitive tools to break through pieces of rock. La Rinconada is situated over 5,000 meter ...

Letters from War (2016)

In 1971, António Lobo Antunes' life is brutally interrupted when he is drafted into the Portuguese Army to serve as a doctor in one of the worst zones of the Colonial War – the East of Angola. Away from everything dear he writes letters to his wife whil ...

Friends after Dark (2016)

In the year when cinema was paralyzed in Portugal due to lack of funding, a group of friends embarks on a mysterious expedition to see wolves in their natural habitat, but ends up being trapped in a house without much to do. The night goes by and the exped ...

John From (2016)

Rita is fifteen and spends the summer between warm afternoons of teenage love and party nights with her friend Sara. From Portugal to the South Pacific, the pleasures of this routine will take a turn when the young girl visits the art show of a new neighbo ...

Arabian Nights: Volume 3, The Enchanted One (2015)

In which Scheherazade doubts that she will still be able to tell stories to please the King, given that what she has to tell weighs three thousand tonnes. She therefore escapes from the palace and travels the Kingdom in search of pleasure and enchantment. ...

Maria do Mar (2015)

It's a summer weekend in a country house near Sintra, in Portugal. Fourteen-year-old Nicolau is spending a couple of days with his older brother Simão and his friends, all of them in their late twenties. Everyone is drawn to the beautiful and quiet Maria ...

Arabian Nights: Volume 2, The Desolate One (2015)

Scheherazade narrates three more tales, supposedly selected from the 470th, 484th and 497th nights of her ordeal: "It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a Judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence. A runaway murderer will wander through the l ...

(Be)Longing (2015)

At Uz, an isolated hamlet in the northern mountains of Portugal, four generations live together in a group of around fifty people. When life is rough, solidarity is of the highest order. Everything else is left in God's hands. They could have emigrated, li ...

Bunker (2015)

A young adolescent, living with a swinger couple in a campsite, meets an emotionally unstable man and finds herself fascinated by his special powers. ...

Arabian Nights: Volume 1, The Restless One (2015)

Every night, in danger of being beheaded, Scheherazade tells King Shahryar unfinished tales to continue them the following night, hence defying his promise of murdering his new wives after their wedding night. Scheherazade tells King Shahryar her stories b ...

The Secret Agent (2015)

An adaptation of the 1907 political novel of the same title by Joseph Conrad set in Portugal during the so-called "Hot Summer" of 1975, re-contextualizing the anarchist prose within the Carnation Revolution. ...

Undisclosed Recipients (2015)

Before and after a kiss ...

The Old Man of Belem (2014)

Don Quixote, Luís de Camões, Camilo Castelo Branco and Teixeira de Pascoaes meet in an eternal garden in the middle of a modern city and talk about life. ...

False Twins (2014)

Hidden memories and lost treasures of our primeval inhabitants. ...

Rex Inutilis (2013)

Tiago is a final-year secondary school student who has failed to graduate twice. Despite praying to the divine, he will fail once again. Between lying to his benevolent mother and giving in to the temptation of a school trip with his girlfriend, Tiago is f ...

Entrecampos (2013)

Mariana is an 11 years old girl coming from Serpa who just moved to Lisbon with her father. The first days are spent in the city cleaning the house and knowing the new neighborhood, Entrecampos. After the first day of school, Mariana gets lost coming home ...

Wild Haggis (2013)

A ten year-old boy faces up to the struggles of life in a summer camp. It's not easy to be ignored by the girl of his heart or seeing his dormitory vandalised by adolescent thugs. Fortunately, in the forest, the wild haggis insists on remaining out of sig ...

Jewels (2013)

A story about survival, belief in the physical memory of things, as if still-life was always part of the scientific possibility or of the nightmare of extinction. ...

Dive: Approach And Exit (2013)

Before the assault, feel the weight of the body. ...

Campo de Flamingos sem Flamingos (2013)

The director takes us on a journey through the Portuguese continental and maritime borders, oriented by a map of Portugal. A year of pictures that cross the four seasons. The landscape is visited in detail, between buildings and natural landscapes, archite ...

Na Escama do Dragão (2012)

A reporter and a camera operator from a Macau TV channel embark on a journey to south of China. ...

The Gift of Tears (2012)

A princess and a hunter. An iconographic journey immersed in Lusitanian fantasy. ...

Gebo and the Shadow (2012)

Despite his age and general weariness, Gebo keeps on working as an accountant to provide for his family. He lives with his wife, Doroteia, and his daughter-in-law, Sofia, but it is the absence of João, son and husband, that worries them.Gebo seems to be h ...

Signs of Stillness in Meaningless Things (2012)

According to the perpetual lunar calendar: 'When sparks catch a pot of water, it signifies wind. When the hills echo loudly and the sea generates great noise, it signifies tempestuous winds and storms at sea. When dense fog forms at dawn, it signals two da ...

Tabu (2012)

Lisbon, Portugal, 2010. Pilar, a pious woman devoted to social causes, maintains a peculiar relationship with her neighbor Aurora, a temperamental old woman obsessed with gambling who lives tormented by a mysterious past. ...

Jesus Por Um Dia (2012)

This documentary follows a group of prison inmates as they prepare to perform the annual Easter ritual, the Via Crucis, with a community of villagers in the northeast region of Portugal. We witness, from the first rehearsal to the day of the procession, th ...

Seems So Long Ago, Nancy (2012)

The gallery attendant in an art gallery or museum is a fundamental piece in its mise-en-scéne, his main role is to see and be seen. Seems So Long Ago, Nancy implies the spectator in an infinite gesture of circular observation — to observe the observers. ...

Soil (2012)

The mountain burns in the August heat. A firefighter falls, swallowed by the ground. The broken body survives as it can. Outside, the night descends. ...

Demain? (2011)

The short life of the Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini is colourfully portrayed, not as a conventional biopic, but as a visual poem which evokes the turbulent life and complex personality of the literary heroine as she develops her genius for writing. ...

Nuvem (2011)

Nuvem, a young man with a strong penchant for stroll and daydream and little given to work, prefers the company of dogs and clowns. Seeing the indifference of his entourage, he lets his need for independence guide him and sets out to find the mysterious su ...

The Sword and the Rose (2010)

Manuel bids farewell to his routine and boards a 15th century vessel under pirate law. Treason on board triggers a series of terrible events our protagonist overcomes while keeping his moral principles intact. ...

The Foreigner (2010)

A character searches, in Macau, for a friend who lived there fifteen years before. Assisted by the letters written to him by his friend, he will reconstitute his past steps, trying to find him. ...

Mercúrio (2010)

A couple in a car, things aren't going well. ...

Voodoo (2010)

All sympathetic magic is based upon two principles: the first called the Law of Similarity says that "likes produce likes," or that an effect resembles its cause; the second, called the law of contagion or contact says that all things having been in contac ...

The Portuguese Nun (2009)

A young French actress in Lisbon to shoot a movie is intrigued by a nun she sees kneeling in the chapel where she is filming. ...

Ruins (2009)

Fragments of spaces, buildings and structures, memories and remains of past eras, places of work or leisure now inhabited by our memories alone, or really forgotten. Dead things or living proof of time, natural elements, and human predators themselves. ...

Song of Love and Health (2009)

João is an indolent young man, whose life is desperately empty. Day after day he goes through the motions of duplicating keys in his tiny shop concealed in the basement of an obsolete nearly deserted shopping center. Some day, he hopes, the lady of his he ...

Our Beloved Month of August (2008)

In the heart of Portugal, amid the mountains, the month of August is abuzz with people and activity... ...

Uprise (2008)

In this evocative story told ingeniously with minimal dialogue, men and women from various backgrounds and places each deal with the loss of a loved one. ...

Carnival: Looking for Paulo 'Miller' (2008)

A 2008 short made in accompaniment with Our Beloved Month of August, documenting Gomes's and his crew's hapless search, during 2007's carnival, for one of Arganil's most storied and elusive characters (who does, in fact, ultimately appear as an interviewee ...

Archive (2007)

It's all natural phenomena. There's no doubt about that. The tide turns in cycles. Water rots wood. Meteors may fall anytime, anywhere. It's just rock burning in the atmosphere. Fishes die if they stay out of the water for too long. This process takes time ...

Canticle of All Creatures (2006)

An interpretation of the life of Francis of Assisi. ...

Bird of Prey (2006)

After finishing his MA in Anthropology, Hugo spends his days giving his brain a rest from the endless reading of texts by unknown authors. His only company is Luisa, the cleaning lady, with whom he plays cat and mouse. To escape the sleep of reason – w ...

The Girl with the Dead Hand (2005)

Cecília is sixteen years old. She has a prosthesis in her left hand and a new love, but she does not have her mother's attention. ...

The Face You Deserve (2005)

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 your 30s ...

The Girl in the Mirror (2004)

A place where putting red lipstick gives life and a broadcast camera takes it, reclaiming lost girls in endoscopic romances into darkness, where they evaporate, inside empty haute couture dresses. ...

Remains (2002)

Everything threatens to crack and yet this devouring march happened long ago in the past. There is no moaning in the room next door, the wind has stopped blowing on the stairs, the air particles throw themselves against each other, but it's only void again ...

Kalkitos (2002)

A 20 year old young man asks some kids if he can play football with them. They think it's weird and ask him how old is he. When he answers «I'm ten» he is laughed at. ...

Christmas Inventory (2000)

A family gathers to celebrate Christmas. ...

Motionless (2000)

Three people in a car, who will stay there the longest, wins the car. ...

Meanwhile (1999)

A love triangle between two boys and a girl who drift through life from a rugby game, to a pool party, to the beach. ...

Estou Perto (1998)

A violent relashionship. ...

Inês de Portugal (1997)

The consuming passion between Pedro I of Portugal and Ines de Castro is brutally interrupted when Ines is executed, as a consequence of political intrigue and in the name of the kingdom's interests. Pedro, cruelly hurt, pursues the single-minded purpose of ...

Polifonias - Paci é saluta, Michel Giacometti (1997)

Traveling by the experience and by the roots of one of the strongest manifestations of Portuguese popular culture – singing polyphonic Alentejo. Evoking Michel Giacometti, the film questions the origins of the "sing" in the context of Mediterranean cultu ...

Cadáver Esquisito (1997)

Desvio (1996)

Sara F. (2018)

Rute is a teenager like so many others: she goes to school, she has swimming lessons, she likes watching films and specially she loves to be online. Rute is almost always on her phone or using her computer. But Rute has a secret nobody knows: Rute is recei ...