Saramago: Documentos

The Genius and the Boys

June 2009 •English

D Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Prions - the particles that would emerge as the cause of Mad Cow disease - while working with a cannibal tribe on New Guinea. He was a star of the scientific world. Over his years working amongst the tribes of the South Seas, he adopted 57 kids, bringing them to a new life in Washington DC. His adoptions were hailed as wonderful fatherly beneficence. But, at the height of his career, rumours began to spread he was a paedophile. Gajdusek would argue that if sex with children was okay in their own cultures, he wasn't wrong to join in. How could a great mind like Gajdusek's lose insight so totally, and why would the scientific community to which he was a hero be so quick to leap to his defence and dismiss the allegations? (Storyville)

10 de julho

July 2017 •French

Alma Anciana

October 2024 •Portuguese

Three juxtaposing stories taking place in Portugal, Austria and Cuba create an intimate and poetic portrait of the daily lives and struggles of the elderly in an unstable world, seen through the eyes of their grandchildren.

E. M. Cioran. Sa vie. Son oeuvre

April 1999 •French

Viagens - 20 Years

August 2014 •English

A behind-the-scenes look at "Viagens", one of the greatest portuguese records of the 1990s, in the year of its 20th anniversary.

As Pedras e o Tempo

March 1961 •Portuguese

Documentary short film on the city of Évora, Portugal. Usually regarded as the first film of the Portuguese New Wave.

Retirement Home

December 2017 •Portuguese

A group of elders spends their weekdays in a retirement home in Sandim, in the north of Portugal, where they talk, do arts and crafts, practice yoga and pray. We follow them between October 2012 and March 2013, when an economic crisis overshadowed Portuguese society and unemployment rates reached record levels. Meanwhile, arrangements are made for the Carnival ball. Will they bring the first place home this time?

I Invite You to My Execution

October 2019 •French

As Russian writer Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) thinks it is impossible that his novel Doctor Zhivago is published in the Soviet Union, because it supposedly shows a critical view of the October Revolution, he decides to smuggle several copies of the manuscript out of the country. It is first published in 1957 in Italia and the author receives the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, which has consequences.

As Armas e o Povo

January 1975 •Portuguese

Film directors with hand-held cameras went to the streets of Lisbon from April 25 to May 1, 1974, registering interviews and political events of the Portuguese "Carnations Revolution", as that period would be later known.

In Search of Memory

August 2008 •German

"In Search of Memory" is a very personal portrait of Eric Kandel, the "rock star" of neuroscience and the most important brain researcher of the 20th century. A fascinating documentary about the exciting mystery of the brain which arouses a curiosity in life and learning.

The Lives of Albert Camus

January 2020 •French

Albert Camus died at 46 years old on January 4, 1960, two years after his Nobel Prize in literature. Author of “L'Etranger”, one of the most widely read novels in the world, philosopher of the absurd and of revolt, resistant, journalist, playwright, Albert Camus had an extraordinary destiny. Child of the poor districts of Algiers, tuberculosis patient, orphan of father, son of an illiterate and deaf mother, he tore himself away from his condition thanks to his teacher. French from Algeria, he never ceased to fight for equality with the Arabs and the Kabyle, while fearing the Independence of the FLN. Founded on restored and colorized archives, and first-hand accounts, this documentary attempts to paint the portrait of Camus as he was.

Sherlock Holmes Against Conan Doyle

February 2018 •French

130 years after he was created, Sherlock Holmes is a literary character who exceeded his author's expectations and is known throughout the world. Find out the true story behind the author, Conan Doyle, and his struggle to come to terms with the phenomenon that is Sherlock Holmes.

BULIR

February 2024 •Portuguese

All the stories told, all the memories, dreams and lost moments were left in a tank from other generations.

The Story of Alfred Nobel

February 1939 •English

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short tells the story of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, and later established the Nobel Prize.

Amilcar, The African utopia maker

Invalid date •Portuguese

Mário Eloy - A Runaway Painter

March 1998 •Portuguese

Documentary about the life and work of Mário Eloy, one of the greatest painters of the second generation of modernism in Portugal.

The Scientist: Are We Missing Something?

November 2015 •English

The story of Nobel prize nominee Dr Mechoulam from his early days as a child of the Holocaust in Bulgaria, through his immigration to Israel, and his career as the chief investigator into the chemistry and biology of the world's most misunderstood plant. Dr. Mechoulam ascertained that THC interacts with the largest receptor system in the human body, the endocannabinoid system.

Lise Meitner: The Mother of the Atom Bomb

February 2013 •German

To historians, physicist Lise Meitner deserves to be placed on a par with Einstein, Heisenberg and Otto Hahn. In the 1930s on the verge of World War II, she led a small group of scientists who discovered that splitting the atomic nucleus of uranium releases enormous energy. This extraordinary film tells the story of a woman who was far ahead of her time as a scientist and a pioneer of feminism.

Jaroslav Seifert

Invalid date •Czech

Fatima: Miracle of the Sun or Harbinger of Deception?

September 2017 •English

100 years ago an event happened that changed the world. Upwards of 70,000 were gathered in the little village of Fatima, Portugal. They were told, by an apparition that had appeared to three children—what many believed to be Mary of the Bible—that a miracle would occur. Something happened on October 13, 1917 and thousands of people witnessed it… It was called, The Miracle of the Sun.