Agência Portuguese Short Film Agency - Booklet Clermont 2024

Portuguese Short Film Agency

2024

Over the past two decades, the Portuguese short film production panorama has conquered extraordinary visibility, thanks to the proliferation of film festivals and alternative exhibition circuits.

It has enhanced itself, changing the paradigm to a new creative and professional perspective.

Never before have so many short films achieved such outstanding quality and diversity. Agência stands at the center of this new paradigm. The vast number of awards, selections, and the substantial recognition that some Portuguese authors have received at an international level are the corollary to that work. Agência is a proactive agent in the presence of Portuguese short films in the international arena.

Throughout its film archive, Agência showcases the complexity and variety of aesthetic approaches of a new generation of Portuguese directors. This catalog gathers the most recent films in circulation and those that will be released in the coming months.

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AGÊNCIA

2023

2720

As Gaivotas Cortam o Céu

Seagulls Cut Through the Sky Basil da Cunha FIC, 24’, Portugal, Switzerland After a violent police raid in a poor clandestine neighbourhood in Lisbon, a 7-year-old girl seeks to find her missing older brother.

At the same time, a young newly released ex-convict tries to start anew, free from a life of crime. The fate of these two will cross in the worst way.

O Jardineiro do Convento / A Jardineira do Convento The Convent Gardener

Mariana Bártolo, Guillermo García López FIC, 18’, Portugal, France Dense atmosphere of change and union strikes in Porto’s harbor. Clara, owner of a fishermen’s bar threatened by closure, finds in the arms of Raquel, waitress on cruise ships, the only shelter to express her fears and contradictions.

Catraias

Patrícia Neves Gomes FIC, 15’, Portugal

Tânia Dinis DOC/EXP, 16’, Portugal

A young man / a young woman poses as mute to get a job as a gardener in a convent.

“Catraias” is an essay-film that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. It is a free reinterpretation of intimate records that are both fleeting and subtle.

AGÊNCIA

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2023

Corpos Cintilantes

Cul-De-Sac

Shimmering Bodies Inês Teixeira FIC, 23’, Portugal

Mário Macedo, Vanja Vascarac FIC/EXP, 18’, Portugal, Croatia

Mariana accepts an unexpected and baffling invitation.

A group of skaters take refuge in a shopping mall.

Exotic Words Drifted

O Homem das Pernas Altas The Long Legged Man

Sandro Aguilar EXP, 15’, Portugal

Vitor Hugo Rocha ANI, 9’, Portugal

Quote: “While I was watching you, exotic words drifted across the mirror of my mind as summer clouds drift across the sky”.

Unquote.

In a blank space, a barrel organ suddenly chokes and plays on its own. Its player with pin-tipped feet, free from playing, may start a dance that makes him see what he couldn’t listen to anymore.

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AGÊNCIA

2023

De Imperio

Espinho

Thorn Alessandro Novelli ANI, 13’, Portugal, Spain

André Guiomar, Mya Kaplan FIC, 15’, Portugal, France

The pieces silently start gathering into the room, while the giants, unaware, keep living their macabre routines.

Téo, a lunar teenager, meets the new priest of his rural village, who just returned from Mozambique. As the two get closer, they develop a spiritual bond immersed in attraction.

Maria

Natureza Humana

Human Nature Mário Macedo, Dornaz Hajiha FIC, 14’, Portugal, France

Mónica Lima FIC, 25’, Portugal, Germany

Maria spends her days working at her stepfamily’s noisy metal factory. Crushed by the violence of men, she also must take care of her both depressive sister-in-law and niece.

A revolution starts boiling inside her.

In an apartment in a city under curfew, a day expands from early Spring to late Summer. A couple’s longing to start a family is shaken by a pervasive feeling of uncertainty.

AGÊNCIA

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2023

Pátio do Carrasco

Quase Me Lembro

Pátio do Carrasco – The Damned Yard

Almost Forgotten

André Gil Mata FIC, 46’, Portugal

Dimitri Mihajlovic, Miguel Lima ANI, 9’, Portugal

“... so that past and future merged in one single present, the strange, terrible life of the Damned Yard” - Ivo Andric

A woman wanders through the impermanence of her childhood memories, trying to rebuild the story of the house where her grandfather lived.

Sonido: Ivans & Tobis

Sopa Fria

Cold Soup Diogo Baldaia FIC, 20’, Portugal

Marta Monteiro ANI, 9’, Portugal, France

Several children are subject to a sound experiment in which they are victims and witnesses of different forms of violence. Ivan, one of them, overcomes it by mysteriously transcending himself. Tobi dares him and they transport themselves into an idyllic world.

A woman victim of domestic violence looks back at the years when she was married, recalling how difficult it was to stay afloat.

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AGÊNCIA

Combat Rita M. Pestana FIC, 22’, Portugal, Brazil When someone decides to leave, they should leave because they want to, not because they have to.

Strata Incognita

Romea Muryń, Francisco Lobo, Amaia Sánchez-Velasco, Jorge Valiente Oriol DOC/EXP, 16’, Portugal, Spain

Portuguese Short Films

Rinha

Soil is our closest alien world. Strata Incognita, is a trans-scalar and trans-temporal journey across the geographies that articulate soil as an agro-industrial infrastructure, but also as an ecosystem and a somatic archive of crimes, memories and myths.

AGÊNCIA

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Coming Soon

Amanhã não dão chuva

It shouldn’t rain tomorrow Maria Trigo Teixeira ANI, 11’, Portugal, Germany As she gets older, Oma’s perception begins to change. While her daughter tries to adapt to her new situation, she seems to sink deeper and deeper into herself.

Deus-e-Meio

God-And -A-Half Margarida Assis DOC, 25’, Portugal A man wanders around an abandoned hospital. Years after their last encounter, someone whose life he saved seeks him out in his old office, so that together they can piece together a memory of their shared past.

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AGÊNCIA

2024

Bad for a Moment

Os Caçadores

The Hunters Daniel Soares FIC, 15’, Portugal

David Pinheiro Vicente FIC, 29’, Portugal, France

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.

1970s. A bourgeois family spends their vacation in the countryside. The cousins entertain themselves with a book of spells. Clarinha’s boyfriend sneaks inside, but is almost caught. He wanders, naked, hiding. Doors are always locked, there’s always someone in the hallway. Will he be able to get out?

Enxofre

Grito

Light Was a Break

Sulfur Karen Akerman, Miguel Seabra Lopes FIC/EXP, 14’, Portugal, Brazil

Luís Costa FIC, 18’, Portugal

Child solidarity is stronger than death.

One sleepless night, Emília recalls a childhood trauma. Amidst the burning memories, she visits her parents, her sister, Manuel and all the places of her solitude.

AGÊNCIA

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2024

O Jardim em Movimento

Tako Te Volim

That’s How I Love You

The Moving Garden Inês Lima FIC/EXP, 18’, Portugal

Mário Macedo FIC, 18’, Portugal, Croatia

Two botanical guides lead a group of hikers on a walk through the Serra da Arrábida Natural Park. Along the way, we learn that this rare and particular space is undergoing a mutation, not due to natural causes, but by human hand.

While spending holidays at his grandparents’ place in the countryside, a boy learns a cruel lesson of mercy.

Três Vírgula Catorze

Three Comma Fourteen

Vultosos Cumes

Under the Mountains’ Shadow

Joana Nogueira, Patrícia Rodrigues ANI, 11’, Portugal

Diogo Salgado FIC, 19’, Portugal, France, Belgium

An inner journey on the condition of children diagnosed with ADHD that struggle with their own vision of the world and what is expected from them. An allegory about the mind and behaviour of these children.

Pedro travels for the first time in one of the vans leading a group of workers to France.

While, for the others, this is another work trip, each kilometer brings Pedro closer to a place that seduces him: the colossal mountains of the Alps.

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AGÊNCIA

Alexandra Ramires, Laura Gonçalves ANI/DOC, 12’, Portugal, France With the sea and the urban Algarve as a background, we follow a complete cycle of the life of a special shellfish called goose barnacle ( percebes ). From their formation, to the dish, in this journey, we cross different contexts that allow us to better understand this region and those who live there.

Since 1999

Percebes

Portuguese Short Film Agency

Curtas Metragens Crl Praça José Régio, 110 4480-718 Vila do Conde Portugal T +351 252 646683 www.agencia.curtas.pt /agenciapt /agenciapt_shorts

General Coordination, Sales and Distribution Joaquim Pedro Pinheiro agencia@curtas.pt Festival Submissions Emanuel Oliveira emanuel@curtas.pt

OR GA N IZ ATION /

FI N AN CI AL S UP P O RT /

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