Valter Hugo Mãe

In a small village, a lonely fisherman yearning for a son is drawn to an ethereal light that links him to others and their long-buried secrets.

Sara is a portuguese actress who only works in film and is known for her ability to cry on cue. But one day her eyes dry up just like her interest in cinema. The solution? Soap operas.

In The Meaning of Life we will take part on a journey throughout the world to question our existence through the inquiries of a young Brazilian, with a rare hereditary disease with no cure.

In a rural landscape, that resembles an old Portugal, an elderly man find out that his wife, whom he believed to be dead, was seen shopping in town. Spiteful and sad, he wants to hide from everyone, but his friends insist that he uses this situation to become stronger and try to get married again.

Filmed over seven years, the documentary follows Valter Hugo Mãe as he writes his novel “A Desumanização”, across journeys through Iceland, Brazil, Portugal, Colombia, and Macau. A visual meditation on solitude, loss, and belonging, featuring appearances by cartoonist Laerte Coutinho and Icelandic composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, mentor of bands such as Sigur Rós and Björk. The film is part of the project “The Meaning of Life”, which director Miguel Gonçalves Mendes has been developing for more than a decade: a series of nine features built as a kaleidoscope of contemporary figures, in which the filmmaker invites us to reflect on what makes us, as humans, unique beings.

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In a village where time and space run out, a child dwells in the death vortex.

Filmed in one of the remaining social housing towers of Aleixo (Porto, Portugal), “Bicicleta” tells the story of a family living under economic pressure.

Portugal, Brazil and Cape Verde. Countries linked by the sea and the culture of nostalgia. The film travels across three continents and finds characters marked by absences produced by events that transform the history of these countries. Like fascism, colonization, slavery, dictatorships and leaving never to return. The culture of saudade is the thread that connects conversations by the sea.