Hell, or Pool Keeping

Musial film about relationships.

Candide is a cold and seductive serial killer that falls in love with a girl who just committed suicide. “Name Above Title”, written and directed by Conceição, fits into the visual and narrative universe created by the filmmaker, in which symbolic fetishism and sadism stand out – with many literary, iconographic and cinematic references -, as well as the lugubrious ambiences and the subversive surrealist tone. Also noteworthy is Leonor Silveira’s performance, fitting perfectly in the universe created by Carlos Conceição.

In 1974, after years of civil war, the Portuguese and their descendants fled the colony of Angola where independentist groups gradually claimed their territory back. A tribal girl discovers love and death when her path crosses that of a young Portuguese soldier. Meanwhile, another group of Portuguese soldiers is barracked inside an infinite wall from which they will have to escape once the past comes out of the grave to claim its long-awaited justice.

Wayward boy punishes his mother’s lover. Beauty and horror fondle each other. Young gods callously abjure conventional morality. Death goes whoring in child’s guise.

T. S. Eliot ends one of his most famous poems, "The Hollow Men", by repeating three times the sentence "This is how the world ends" - and then adding: "Not with a bang but a whimper."

A homeless teenager is domesticated by an eccentric mother and daughter, in order to become a potential companion for the girl. He is subjected to trials and proves. As days go by, new impulses will arrise from either side and control will be lost over instinc and logic - until the ultimate surrender. Such is the sentimental education of monsters: we are who we are, having secretly decided on who we would like to be.

At dawn, Olga only wants to be let inside and sit for a while. But Andreia has nothing left to tell her, and she will be a mom soon.

Violante, a young and beautiful catholic nun, is facing a few marital issues with her husband Jesus Christ - who stalks her through the dark corners of a decaying convent and seeks to punish her for her (alleged) sins. In a dark stormy night they struggle to win each other to their personal points of view. She quotes the bible in terms of unconditional love - He does the same in terms of capital punishment. But are His manly insecurities based on solid grounds? After escaping His jealous rage, the nun lurks through the dark alleys and the bars like a vampire. Doomed to loneliness, all she wants is a Man. And who can this Man be?

A young man drifts through a post-disaster African landscape looking for his mother's ghost.

Drunk by dawn, André thinks he has seen a flying saucer. Later he wakes up in a cold beach and there he meets the mysterious Rafael. One year later, André falls in love with Marlene - and Rafael discovers rock music.