Manuel Mesquita

A loner, narcissistic and suicidal teenager attracts most of the people he meets like a fatal aura, a black light. He falls deeply in love with Teresa but does she exist or is she a mere figment, an image, a reflection? Teresa is an apparition. A pretext for an amoral violent uprising, for doomed love.

Une vieille dame au fort tempérament, sa femme de ménage Cap-Verdienne et sa voisine dévouée à de bonnes causes partagent le même étage d’un immeuble à Lisbonne. Lorsque la première meurt, les deux autres prennent connaissance d’un épisode de son passé : une histoire d’amour et de crime dans une Afrique de film d’aventures.

After finishing his MA in Anthropology, Hugo spends his days giving his brain a rest from the endless reading of texts by unknown authors. His only company is Luisa, the cleaning lady, with whom he plays cat and mouse. To escape the sleep of reason – which creates monsters -, Hugo exercises his lyrical vein by writing, with his friend Manuel, songs about their neighbourhood. The quiet dilettantism of our protagonist is shaken by Catarina, a young and beautiful translator who’s starting her professional life as a freelancer. Hugo is hooked and wavers. High above, a kestrel falcon hovers. It’s not the only bird of prey that can do it.

Manuel a 31 ans et travaille comme journaliste free-lance. Il habite dans un quartier populaire de Lisbonne, où les maisons – aussi vieilles et décrépies que leurs habitants – sont bien meilleur marché. Son quotidien est solitaire et répétitif, dû aux petits boulots qu’il se voit obligé de faire et dont il s’acquitte sans grande motivation face à l’écran de son ordinateur. Il n’est pas le plus heureux des jeunes hommes mais, malgré tout, n’est pas un sauvage non plus: il a des amis, une petite copine, une femme de ménage et un inspecteur des impôts.

Jorge, a very shy young man, works as bellboy in a Lisbon hotel and lives in a guesthouse where he is constantly harassed by the owner’s daughter. As he tries to resist her charms, the boy dreams of one thing only: to incarnate the singer Tony de Matos. This obsession leads him to sign up for an unique karaoke contest, where he will finally be able to give life to his longtime hero. And it’s amid a group of strange characters that Jorge will understand that, after all, he is not alone.