With the aim of discovering and nurturing new talent, Cinema Novo brings together a selection of short films made by Portuguese students or students from Portuguese higher education institutions, in an annual showcase of the best work from the country’s film schools. This programme has the support of Canal 180.
CINEMA NOVO COMPETITION 2023
And What Now?
Dominika Kováčová (FBAUL), Portugal, DOC, 2023, 7’
Through abstract imagery we are subjected to the emotional experience of love of an individual. The film captures euphoria and anxiety, the happiness and misery of the encounter between two people.
Fantasma
Vasco Viana, Siddesh Shetty (FAMU), Czech Republic, Portugal, 2023,FIC, 8’
A ghost of a young mother, lost in the human world, sets on a journey to find redemption. On her way she witnesses past memories that she shared with her son.
I Fear the End of Things
Nicole Noia (ESMAD), Portugal, DOC, 2023, 37’
Using memories and family archives, the director tells the story of her great-uncle Fernando, who lived most of his life as a merchant in São Tomé de Negrelos, Santo Tirso. But how will he die?
Cure
Francisca Dores (Escola das Artes – UCP), Portugal, 2023, DOC, 5’
In a fragment of resin there is a microcosm: fossilised eucalyptus leaves, a suspended still life, spectres of a past world, sounds of Cure.
Rubab
Marta Vaz (ESTC), Portugal, 2023, DOC, 18’
After the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, music was banned in the country. Kabul's only music school took refuge in Lisbon and a hundred of its students were welcomed at the National Conservatory. This is a portrait of their adaptation.
Litoral
Francisco Dias (Escola das Artes – UCP), Portugal, 2023, FIC, 13’
A block of buildings built on the shoreline is threatened by coastal erosion. Two neighbours, forced to abandon their dream of living by the beach, consider starting again elsewhere.
The Species in between Memory and Reverie
Ricardo Mineiro (IPLeiria – ESAD), Portugal, 2023, DOC, 20’
A docufiction where sound and image intertwine to explore the emotional and immaterial world of five people who are going through the transition phase between adolescence and adulthood, full of reminiscences, ambiguities and daydreams.
Passage
Francisca Miranda (FBAUP), Portugal, 2023, DOC, 12’
Daniela transports us to the most joyful pictures in her family album, the photographs of birthdays. It is through the images that she reveals her deepest wishes and frustrations and those of her closest family members.
As long as I breathe
Catarina Couto Gonçalves (DOC Nomads), Portugal, 2023, DOC, 15’
A portrait of the life of Vitória, a woman who lives in a family composed of only women. Their connection to God brought them together, but their bond goes way beyond it. As Vitória reaches her last years, her sisters accompany her in a life of stillness and community.
Driving Nowhere
Marco Pereira Campos (ESCAC), Spain, Portugal, 2023, DOC, 15’
Driving Nowhere is in its core a road movie that explores the synergy of hardcore music and dance, resonating with emotions of alienation and defiance.
Between Rivers
Yohanan Khodr (ESAP), Portugal, Brasil Brazil, 2023, DOC, 15’
Reimagining Walter Hugo Khouri’s Noite Vazia (1964), Between Rivers is an introspective exploration of a young man’s journey from Northeast Brazil to São Paulo. A film where time and space are suspended.
Memories of Blackwood and Ivory
Inês Costa (FBAUL), Portugal, 2023, DOC, 16’
Animated cinema joins family archives and through the voices of the director's grandparents (her maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather) we remember the dictatorship, the war and Portugal's colonial past. Stories that break free from the dominant narratives about national identity.
