It's the adaptation of a text of a Portuguese writer by the hand of the filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira.

Eccentricities of a blonde girl is a movie without surprises. It is an adaptation of a text of Eça de Queiroz to the film language of Manoel de Oliveira. It's a dream, a vision that by becoming reality disappoints. The protagonist, Macario, played by Ricardo Trêpa, admires Louise, the actress Catarina Wallenstein, a girl he peers from afar, from a window and falls madly in love with her until one day he discovers that not everything is what it seems, she has a uniqueness that demarcates her from other women for the worst reasons possible. The film itself is not exciting, I think the difficulty lies in translating the Queirós language of the nineteenth century to the present, although the themes are universal, false appearances, materialism and said social conventions that govern our society. And despite all these but, there are two positive developments that I would like to highlight the work of the young actress Catarina Wallenstein, who composed an angelic character, almost ethereal, which gives to Luisa Vilaça great credibility and the composition of actor Diogo Doria, who gave life to an uncle Francisco very austere and demanding, but extremely convincing. I should add that, and may not seem important that the image chosen for the poster in Portuguese is truly unfortunate in terms of communication, it adds absolutely nothing, and it is a bad choice. Interestingly, the same cannot be said of the international version, in fact selected photographic composition is much more interesting and appealing, the question is why the unusual choice in national version. Good cinema.

It is one more a cinematic Portuguese panorama in the city of Coimbra, between the days 10th and 17th of November.

The festival "Paths of Portuguese Cinema" continues with the release of
national cinema showing all the Portuguese production of last year, highlighting the film of Joao Correa and Francisco Manso, Aristides de Sousa Mendes-The Consul of Bordeaux. The schedule affixed to various types of content from cinema, through a varied selection of feature films, short films, animation films and documentaries for all types of audiences. There's a bit of everything and something for everyone. The category of visual essays presents several works by young Portuguese filmmakers, with a large majority of national premieres. New in this show are the national Geopaths cinematography, geocaching to acquaint the participants towards Portuguese cinema and the city of Coimbra, the contest "Arguments Coimbra Shoots up" and the exhibition of short films "A Charm in a Minute." Other event of the festival is the second edition of the film school, "Cinemalogia 2 - from idea to film" which addresses various topics that allow participants to become autonomous in film production, in all its aspects. The contents ranges from the design and development of an original idea of fiction to its view in a theater, enabling learners to produce a short film, using the knowledge of digital video production achieved over training. The teachers include prominent names like Paulo Granga, Tiago R. Santos, Acacio de Almeida, Augusto Mayer, Joao Braz, Rodrigo Lacerda, Nelson Zagallo and Jorge Pelicano.

http://www.caminhos.info/

The Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival takes place from the 9th to the 18th of November in various areas of the capital and municipality of Cascais.

The program of LEFFEST'12 strong bets in a wide variety cinematic, as indeed has been the hallmark of its previous editions. The highlight will once again be the internationally renowned guest among which are Willem Dafoe and Paul Giamatti, as well as the honored personalities whose filmography is passed in full, as is the case of João Pedro Rodrigues that explores the fetishist universe, so such that it is capable of exploring the traditional road to home panorama Portuguese films, placing it among the greats of world cinema. Without forgetting João Rui Guerra da Mata, co-director and co-writer on many of his films. The names that deserved a retrospective of his work this year are filmmaker and producer Monte Hellman and Lucrecia Martel. Another of the highlights of this event are the cinematic exhibition, "'Noronha da Costa - The Representation of Images" is one of the most productive artists of Portuguese contemporary art, as well as the show entitled "David Hockney and Alberto Lacerda" where you can enjoy some correspondence, articles and some papers exchanged between the two and even photos, "Ithaca" by Portuguese photographer Isabel Zuzarte. A note also for the presentation of the book "between heaven and earth" of Rui Chafes, a Portuguese sculptor who began his artistic journey with installations in less noble materials. The Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival wants to give the viewer the possibility to intervene in the action, confronting ideas, understand, participate and be surprised, through conferences, master classes, workshops, performances, debates and performances. The selection of films in competition this year, want to project key authors in the history of cinema and emerging young filmmakers.

http://www.leffest.com/pt

It's an exhibition of films that take place between 6.7 and 8 December, in the Sun cinema in partnership with Inn of Ponta do Sol.

Explain a little bit the concepts behind the MMIFF'12
Nuno Barcelos: The objective is to interconnect a former art deco cinema, a hotel design and the landscapes of Madeira. The environment we want to create is a bit eerie and dramatic; we want to be an independent festival.
Will show only short films?
NB: No, the MMIFF '12 will show only 6 films in 3 days, is micro precisely for this reason, because the festival has on averaged about 20, 60, 120 films that will be presented over several days.
The films follow a particular theme or not?
NB: This was one of the issues that we put in the table when we decided to organize this event film; basically this is the year zero. We had a kind of "brainstorming" about the content of films and somehow reached the conclusion that we wanted a marginal festival, indie. The theme is independent cinema and brush a little into the surreal and fantastic, without being confused with renowned festivals, such as the Fantasporto. Our hallmarks are the dramatic landscapes of the island, somehow ghostly, we also intend to sell the destination Madeira and promote a space that is a movie with almost 100 years. The Sol Cinema is somewhat decadent, the idea is to keep it such as it is, with its cobwebs, with peeling walls by the time we will include decorative elements of the time, all these vectors together will differentiate us because the aim is to present a current and contemporary festival that could happen in a big cities, but that eventually take place in a picturesque village, an area that has elements of Kafka and Lynch and an exotic island.
And how was made the selection of movies?
NB: The selection of films was made by one of our partners in the organization of this event, the Digital Berlin, which is a European cultural marketing company, who suggested the idea of ​​organizing this festival. We decided to embrace this project, because they boast a public, half the spectators were foreigners. The selection, however, followed logical, very recent European films, which have been seem very few times and address the fantastic.
Are any of the films Portuguese?
NB: Unfortunately we could not make it so this year, this is a year zero and for such we could not use the proper channels to promote the festival in our country, despite the inscriptions ended in October 31th films are chosen and the program will be presented at the end of this month, but we hope that next year we can show national films, because there are new blood that needs to be shown.

http://mmiff.com/

It's a film noir of 1984 from director António Pedro Vasconcelos.

The "dead's place" was one of the biggest commercial successes of Portuguese cinema, this is mainly the plot almost in a tone of foretold tragedy, that involves a journalist looking for answers over an alleged suicide and that in the course of his investigation he gets involved just with a true femme fatale, Anna, played by the beautiful Ana Zanatti. You want to know what I liked most of this movie? The popular, the newspaper where he works, Álvaro Serpa, the actor Pedro Oliveira, was delicious to revise the telex machines receiving the news from all corners of the world, the telephone service girl transferring calls, the archivists who collected and archive valuable information about the various personalities and key events of the society of the time, the phones constantly ringing and the famous typewriters, the most striking in this scenario is the deafening noise of the work environment, we almost cease to believe they could worked and the it is incredible to see the amount of people that was needed to bring to life a daily newspaper. Another great scene that deserves my highlight is the train, the rocking of the coach sets the tone of the narrative, a hallucinatory trip at high speed. António Pedro Vasconcelos films a race Lisbon in the eighties in a competent manner, the only aspect where the film fails is that the story itself, the alleged crime fades to the end without any major surprises that leaves us with more questions than answers. However, it is always worth reviewing this "the dead's place". Good cinema.

In the Miragaia auditorium on the 12th of October, at 21:30.

The movie-theater of the Confederate Research Theatre in co-production with the Musical group of Miragaia and Manobras, launches the premiere of the animated film entitled "The Legend of Miragaia" with Von Calhau drawings, texts of Eurico, the refiner and settings of Cesar Pedro. According to the organization of this event "the legend of King Ramiro's so disfigured that we cannot take it from the historical background. Starting originally in the cycle of Solomon, identical to that of Charlemagne and King Arthur by the importance that took in medieval literature, we have the fact. the military, that is positive and concrete, is taken by surprise and as a result of sea expedition , Castle Gaia, Christian knights ... the rest ... the rest, is the survival of a loving Solomonic subject, which became popular and had an immense parallel developments and similar cycles of chivalrous in the middle ages. And now we know, on the left bank of the Douro and almost plumb upon him, in front of Miragaia and Porto stands a large conical hill, still called Castle of Gaia, where once in a remote time Roman lived , and then became an Arabic castle". Shortly before the movie session there will be a conference on "pentconical quadrology " presented by Von Calhau.

A film directed by Tiago Guedes and Frederico Serra.

It is considered the first horror Portuguese movie and while I agree, It's much more than this epithet, I think one of the best thrillers made in Portugal. The script of Rodrigo Guedes de Carvalho is excellent and the story is very well told. Everything revolves around a legendary curse that plagues a house in the countryside and the devastating effects it has on the life of an unsuspecting family from the suburbs, so far nothing new, but the similarities end there with other films. Basically, this film is a reflection of our culture, addresses the otherworldly entities that roam this plane of existence in search of revenge, or who simply wish to disturb the living and the popular beliefs around these demonic figures, evoked in the villages fearing of God, the question is not if you believe it or not, but as the priest says at the very beginning, how can we refute its non-existence? The passage of time is also very important in this film; it seems that never passes by...it's annoying. The script directs us to a carefully contoured supernatural climax without cheating the viewer, which is not unexpected, is the anguish of uncertainty that feeds our curiosity until the ultimate end. I do not want to unveil too much, because I do not intend that the testimonial pollutes in some way what I can add about this movie. What I can say without exaggerating, again, is worth envisioned, if not so for the beautiful result of the action plans that link together, in fact, this is another point in favor of this psychological thriller, when the characters open the gates of the solar, for example, a rule in the films of the genre the "poor victims" face somewhat decadent gates that signal that something bad in going to happen this film, notice how everything is filmed backwards so to speak, who is the spectator ? Last but not least my appreciation for group of actors who were also up for the challenge, a cast full of well known names of the Portuguese and others less, youth values, that made this "bad thing" a remarkable film. Good movie!

It is a film about the past in search of justice on the present days.

A banal event, resurrects the ghosts of the Estado Novo dictatorship, still very present in some of its victims, though they never evoke it verbally. The course memories that resurfaced in the figure of a torturer of the regime who fled to Brazil after the April 25th, 1974 and forty years later is back been judged by the trampling of a child in Portugal. During the trial he is recognized by one of the people he tortured and all the revolts he buried in the depths of his soul are back to the surface clamoring for revenge. I liked this film for its intelligence, by addressing a topic that is still taboo in Portuguese society without denigrating it and the idea of double trial, First, Mendes Oliveira, killed a child and once again is not judged by those facts, he leaves another victim who has to carry this burden in this case the mother. On the other hand, Jaime and Miguel, two of his previous victims recognize him and decide to judge him on its own, setting themselves the rules of this very dangerous game. The script written by Izaías Almada and João Nunes is wonderful in the way develops the moral and ethical dilemmas of the characters, by playing with their anxieties, with their strengths and their weaknesses. If I had to assign grades, this movie would surely have the maximum price. There is a great psychological tension created skillfully director Leonel Vieira and a team of heavyweights, established actors, which printed great veracity to this characters and a depth that does not leave us indifferent. Makes you think. What would you do if you saw your worst nightmare? Did you seek for revenge? In what way? And I guarantee that there are surprises in this movie. This is an excellent example of Portuguese cinema and I demand you see it. Good movie!

A mysterious inheritance will change the fate of several characters.

It is a suspense film of José Fonseca e Costa that I liked, but with some reluctance. The story revolves around an inheritance, which looks more like a poisoned gift in the beginning and so far so good. Then there are a series of mysteries that revolve around the main character's ancestors, Lino Rodrigues Pais, the heir to a farm in Alentejo filled with ghosts and ancient stories that should not be stirred much less revived and so far so good too. Then kick in the flashbacks to the past so that we should not drawn back and ended up in a brothel for a change and from there everything rushes to a somewhat abrupt end with an extra death, that in my point of view, did not have to happen. Fascination promises, but somewhat disappoints, because mixes at the same time the subject of the paranormal, with what after all is nothing more than a shakedown. I liked especially the soundtrack by António Pinho Vargas, who prints a lot of tension to the action of this film. Another one of my highlights goes to the actor Victor North, the protagonist, who created a great character for this family intrigue, which is not surprising, since he is a national reference in the art scene. Good movie!

It's a short film, a final college project that shows the maturity of a future filmmaker.

Francisco Manuel Sousa is a serious case of national talent. Just be aware of this his first short film, the last days. The most extraordinary feature of this film is that his project it is his work for his final year of college. This youngster shows great maturity in the way he approaches film and the theme of generational miscommunication. The early scenes hold the viewer immediately. Liked already the first take, is brilliant the way he captures the look of also talented protagonist, Joana Belo, note that the camera already is in love the face of this young actress. The ending is unexpected and clever; hence my highest score for the script. It's a very exciting movie, we cannot imagine the outcome that leads the character Luisa to the irreducible decision that will change the course of her life forever, and it reminds me of the films of director M. Night Shyamalan. Maybe there is an influence there. My last comment goes to the small group of actors, I have already spoken of the leading actress, however, the remaining cast does a consistent job. Francisco Manuel Sousa has to be congratulated on this matter; he knew how to choose the right people for his little project. "The last days" is thus an excellent visiting card and also carries a great responsibility, so raises expectations even more for this next project. I look forward for this new opportunity. Now get scared or not, the choice is yours. Good cinema.