By the director: "Ar.Co embodies each person’s geography, it escapes normalisation. Each individual’s experience is his own. This film is my experience, our experience. Pieced together from the school’s archive, from recordings of classes by Manuel Castro Caldas and from conversations at home."

The Indispensable Practice of Vagueness

The story of Miguel Moreira and Ruben Furtado, two Cape Verdean immigrant descendants who live in Portugal but have no legal documents. They are torn between the desire to be a full Portuguese citizen and the obstacles they find in their day to day. Proud of being who they are they keep on dreaming of their future reflecting their wishes for a better life. Above all, Michael and Ruben lead us to one question: What kind of identity has a stateless person?

Li ké terra

Generation Orchestra is a portrait of the impact of an initiative by the same name students from the Miguel Torga School, in Amadora. The initiative was inspired by the international project Orquestra Simon Bolivar, the apex of the National Network of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela. Ana, Daniel, Diogo and Monica take part in Generation Orchestra and devote themselves to a project that breaks with the formatted context of public schooling and becomes an indispensable part of their lives. From the onset, starting with Drama classes, we discover their dreams, their relationship with music and their sense of truly belonging to a group.

Orquestra Geração

Lives being lived, words, gestures, gazes cross our paths, amidst a chaos en framed by a rectangular grid of windows and balconies. Rows of buildings interconnected by corridors perched over courtyards. Each ones property off their private slice of the view. The geometry of the life of a neighborhood: Bela Vista.

Bela Vista

We wanted to make a film about a teenage mother. We met Joana in a casting that took place in Setubal, in the Bela Vista neighborhood. She appeared to us as a porcelain doll, small, fragile, pale, with a little hair bow. Little by little, she crumbled apart, revealing a charming complexity. We were conquered by the duality of strength and fragility, freedom and incarceration, joy and sorrow. The intimacy and complicity we were able to establish with her made this film possible. In Cat's Cradle, we share her with everyone else.

Cat's Cradle

While observing others, Paula is also, herself, observed. ' Know the difference between an old maid and a spinster? The old maid does not have a choice. '