Philippe Morel
Sound
Known For

In 1991, 24-year-old Detective Alexandre Falco has it all, a loving wife, a new-born daughter and his dream job. But one day out in the field, he is shot in the head. Falco opens his eyes again 22 years later to a changed world, where everything he once had is no longer as it was.
Falco

An impossible love. Two young people who love each other. Vera and João can’t find in this life the space, time, or identity to resolve their love story.
Fragile as the World

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.
Belle Époque

In early 1920s France, an author, lying on his deathbed, looks at various photographs and is flooded with memories of the people and events that have shaped his life.
Time Regained

After reading a postcard that her mother let go in the wind, a woman learns that she has a twin.
Deux

A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.
A Talking Picture

After eighteen years of psychiatric care, the former bank manager Augusto Scrivani returns home from his daughter-in-law Carla. Dino Risi directs a melancholy and scratchy Gassman.
I'll Be Going Now

The Arbac de Neuvilles are one of the oldest families in France. They have inhabited their ancient château for fifty-two generations and are proud of their noble ancestry. But today they are stone broke. When a bailiff turns up notifying them that they owe two million euros in back taxes, these proud aristocrats are understandably shaken to the core of their ancestral seat. Just how are they to find this amount of money when none of them has any capacity for work?
Les Aristos

Elvio Battistini works as a ticket taker in the local cinema of the small town where he lives. He has a prosthesis in one leg, the result of an accident, but he tells anyone who will listen it is a war injury. Giuseppe Mondardini, is also an older man living alone in what was the splendid family home. When Elvio and Giuseppe meet, they hit it off immediately. A trip to a cooler area is in order, so Mordardini unveils his ancient automobile.
Taste of Life

An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.
Inquietude

Manoel de Oliveira directs José Régio's historical epic of religious and political power struggles. King Sebastião plans to make Portugal the world's Fifth Empire.
The Fifth Empire

Young Jesus is taken on a vacation by his parents (Rita Blanco, Adriano Luz) to a deserted beach resort. They accidentally fall into overnight wealth after Jesus digs in the sand, uncovering a large drug stash. Others characters intersecting here include an alcoholic actress, a philandering banker, a general trafficking in arms, priests who close their church and head north as hitchhikers, politicians who watch an all-girl production of Julius Caesar, and beggars who recite a children's story in a huge heap of trash.
Traffic

David has a wife and young daughter. In a few days he will be moving abroad with his family. The death of his grandfather obliges him to return to the village of his birth and a family he hasn’t seen in years. There he meets his cousin's wife Ana, who intrigues him, and this trip, which should have ended with the funeral, turns into a long stay.
Lent

An intriguing story about a family and a manor house (where some terrible crimes were committed in the past by a member of that family) adapted from a novel with the same title by Tabajara Ruas.
The Fascination

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

Arthur is a history teacher who lives alone in Paris after having broken up with Claire. He is a sensitive man, full of existential doubts and questions. He has to go to Lisbon to meet an eminent historian whose work is the subject of his thesis. Having just made up with Claire, he decides to take her along. She's an ideal travel companion and it seems their relationship has not yet exhausted its potential. But moving from Lisbon to Oporto, their fantasy of a second honeymoon clashes with the reality of a world on the verge of a nightmare.
Three Bridges on the River

Alexandra Lencastre plays a woman who believes she is President of the U.S.A.
A Mulher que Acreditava Ser Presidente dos EUA

Claude Brasseur stars in this cinemadaptation of the Moliere play Georges Dandin, ou le mari confondu. Written in 1668, the play has been somewhat dwarfed by such like-vintage Moliere classics as The Imaginary Invalid. Still, it was popular enough in its time to inspire imitation, most notably Betterton's Don Juan and The Amorous Widow. The plot, involving a wealthy man's avoidance of marriage until he is trapped by a crafty widow, is but a peg upon which to hang any number of comic complications and character vignettes. Brasseur's leading lady is the toothsome Zabou.
Dandin

Manoel de Oliveira's homage to Vila do Conde, with a poem by José Régio. It was shot in 1965, but only completed in 2008.
Romance de Vila do Conde

Manoel de Oliveira's autobiographical documentary about returning to his hometown.