Rúben Gonçalves
Directing
Known For

A historical fiction series that, from the biographies and cultural and civic intervention of the poet Natalia Correia, the editor Snu Abecassis and the journalist Vera Lagoa (pseudonym of Maria Armanda Falcão), recalls the last years of the Estado Novo (Second Republic) - 1961 to 1973 - from the beginning of the colonial War to the eve of the April Revolution.
3 Women

Filipe, a municipal architect known for his idealism and commitment to environmental causes, is the only person who can stop the construction of a luxury real estate development in a protected area. Maria Rodrigues, a young prosecutor, is pursuing a lead in a high-level financial corruption case. At the same time, the reopening of a closed case, in which she was the victim, forces her to confront the deep and painful trauma of a night that took place 15 years before. As she takes the investigation into her own hands, she struggles with the hazy memories of the rape and hit-and-run. Filipe is one of the main suspects, but was it really him?
Fateful Dawn

In the town of Entroncamento, violence, misfortune, greed, and loyalty rule the streets. Laura arrives there to rebuild her life, but the irresistible pull of quick money and crime immediately draws her back into a troubled past. For those she meets at this crossroads, every day presents the choice between who they were and who they might become.
Entroncamento

Idling afternoons, drugs, heartbreaks, psychedelic moods immersed in music. An adrenaline rush. Lisbon as the backdrop for a drifting youth.
Damned Summer

The character of a novel gains life to torment the author, revisiting and reliving the story of a crime.
Field of Blood
Forget everything, or recover memory and remember. Let yourself fall and stop, or return to life and start again. Adrift, lost face-to-face, two women confront their fates. Is there not just one thing worth saving? Without hesitation, the desire to live, that rebellious fury that takes no heed of risks. And how do you save a world where poetry has disappeared?
She Was Staring and Saw Nothing

In 1918, Maria Adelaide Coelho da Cunha, heiress and owner of the Diário de Notícias, leaves the social, cultural and family luxury in which she lives to escape with a petty chauffeur, 26 years younger.
Moral Order
A protagonist in limbo, with a precarious work situation, a temporary home location. And a hidden facet of his life that he reveals to few.
Silvestre
A ferryboat. A meeting between two souls. Hurdles and shadows keep being overcome until the end. Bodies always striving to breathe along the way.
Pas de Quoi

From a certain idea of Rousseauian rural purity, “Colmeal” is settled in the small homonymous village located in Riba-Côa, also known as ghost village, due to the effects of the rural exodus and the inland desertification. In an allegorical way, quite worked on the natural elements and the sound elements, the film tells the story of a young man who lives isolated and who obsessed by a woman who comes from the city to spend her summer vacation. Gradually, the young man tries to overcome the inability to deal with his emotions, seeking to discover himself, emotionally and sexually. Márcio Laranjeira and Sérgio Brás d’Almeida are debutants in Curtas Vila do Conde and propose a return to the themes of growing pains and transition to adulthood, with young people trying to find their place in the world and to define their personality, especially in context of social and loving relationships.
Colmeal

Ruben can’t decide. Women or men.
Ruben's Choice

Childhood, Boyhood, Youth is a gripping coming-of-age story set within the walls of the National Conservatory Dance School in Lisbon, Portugal. The film takes us into the little-known world of classical dance, letting us witness moments of learning, rivalry and bonding between the students as they are put to the test during three key moments that will determine the rest of their lives.