Torero

Mariano Cruz Ordóñez is an Ecuadorian bullfighter at the end of his artistic career. Mariano was a figure of bullfighting in Ecuador and participated in the most important bullrings of his country and the world. The glory years have passed and prohibitions have arisen regarding bullfighting shows, and the only thing left is, with tenacity and faith, to fight against various adverse circumstances looking for a chance to move foward.

Alma Anciana

Three juxtaposing stories taking place in Portugal, Austria and Cuba create an intimate and poetic portrait of the daily lives and struggles of the elderly in an unstable world, seen through the eyes of their grandchildren.

Centro de Dia

A group of elders spends their weekdays in a retirement home in Sandim, in the north of Portugal, where they talk, do arts and crafts, practice yoga and pray. We follow them between October 2012 and March 2013, when an economic crisis overshadowed Portuguese society and unemployment rates reached record levels. Meanwhile, arrangements are made for the Carnival ball. Will they bring the first place home this time?

Tú solo

In their spare time, after their studies or their work, children and adolescents between the ages of eight and sixteen meet at the School of Bullfighting in Madrid to learn the Art of Cúchares: Torear. In their stomachs there is no hunger as in the past, their dreams do not lie in having a farmhouse and being famous. Their only dreams are to be in front of a bull, animal with which death goes, fact of which they are fully aware, as their teachers continually remind them. These, retired bullfighters, some by age, others by force and all with their bodies full of scars produced by the horns of a bull. The nude bullfighting scene is fascinating without being exploitive, and it serves as an analogy for the vulnerability these young bullfighters have when in the ring with the bulls.

Orson Welles in Spain

Orson Welles pitches to potential investors his vision of a largely improvised bullfighter movie about an existential, James Dean type troubadour who sets himself apart from other matadors. In front of an audience of wealthy arts patrons, Welles pontificates on the state of cinema, the filmmaking process, and the art of bullfighting.

Horikita Maki: Castella

Documentary about the photo session for the photobook "Castella", filmed in Portugal.

Méditerranée

[Here] Pollet made a work that is the very definition of what French critics like to call an ovni or ufo (as in ‘unidentified filmic object’). [It] has been described as being ‘like a comet in the sky of French cinema,’ an ‘unknown masterpiece,’ and an ‘unprecedented’ work that refuses interpretation even as it has provoked reams of critical writing. Its rhythmic collage of images – a girl on a gurney, a fisherman, Greek ruins, a Sicilian garden, a Spanish corrida – is accompanied by an abstract commentary written by Sollers, and only the somber lyricism of Antoine Duhamel’s score holds the film’s elements together. At first viewing, you fear that [it] might fly apart into incoherent fragments. Instead, over the course of its 45 minutes it invents its own rules, and you realize you’re watching something like the filmic channeling of an ancient ritual. – Chris Darke, FILM COMMENT

Where to Invade Next

To understand firsthand what the United States of America can learn from other nations, Michael Moore playfully “invades” some to see what they have to offer.

Arruza

Eight years in the making, Boetticher’s portrait of his longtime friend, the famous bullfighter Carlos Arruza, was a labor of love that the renowned director of westerns pursued despite contending with illnesses, bankruptcy, jail time, and lucrative offers from Hollywood. The result is an astonishing work of poetry, immediacy, and violence that fearlessly wrestles with the filmmaker’s own ambivalence about the titular matador’s triumphs prior to his death by automobile accident at the age of 46.

Urute vv

An intimate glimpse into 3 years of serene moments, compiling video, polaroids and other things that were lying around when editing.

Wild Portugal

Picture a land of boulder-strewn shorelines, isolated mountaintops, and golden prairies. Here, packs of wolves stalk herds of ancient mustangs and tree-climbing carnivores keep entire forests on edge. Meanwhile, high above the crashing surf, a pair of storks attempts to raise a family on a narrow ledge atop a towering cliff. EUROPE'S WILD WEST is a place where survival is reserved for those with the keenest senses... and the quickest draw.

Regresso à casa de partida antes que a partida seja definitiva

Another Day of Life

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

Bull Jumping

Little known on this side of the pond, “course landaise” consists of confronting a bull and dodging his powerful charge by way of acrobatic somersault. French athlete Emmanuel Lataste is the first to try to garner attention in North America for this extreme sport.

O outro lado da fruta

A day in the life of Marta, a raspberry grower who doesn't give up on her dreams.

Mário Eloy - Um Pintor em Fuga

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

Death: The Ultimate Horror

This grisly documentary presents horrifying journalistic footage of suicides, assassinations, bombings, mob hits, decapitations, and more in bloody detail. Not for the faint of heart.

52 domingos

The misadventures of a group of young people who seek a better life by becoming bullfighters, the only way to leave their poor existence in the slums of Barcelona.

Duende

Duende, the title of this documentary, is a richly complex and untranslatably idiomatic Spanish word which evokes the mysterious, ineffable quality that the art of bullfighting has for its devotees. This film explores the process by which an apprentice bullfighter, Carmelo, became a matador, a term which is reserved only for those who are recognized as being fully qualified to serve as a central player in this ritualistic drama, la corrida, which is sometimes incorrectly described as being a "sport." Various senior and retired bullfighters and their relatives recount their observations and experiences, and Carmelo re-enacts his coming-of-age as a bullfighter for the cameras. Those who are already convinced that la corrida is a celebration of the mystery of life and death may particularly appreciate this respectful documentary.

Paula Rego: Telling Tales

Born in Portugal, Paula Rego is one of Britain's leading artists. This intimate film follows the artist from her retrospective in Madrid to the privacy of her studio in London while she talks with humor and candor about her compulsion to produce works that, though accessible, deal with the most private themes.