Fernando Vendrell
Director and producer.
Works
Star Sailors
The fearless race of the 1920's Portuguese aviation pioneers to cross the South Atlantic Ocean through aerial navigation, became an epic story of the modern age argonauts. In order to reach the stars - sailing is necessary- navigandum est.
Release Date:2025-01-27
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Episode Count:6
The Flight of The Crocodile – Ruy Cinatti’s Timor
“I am totally in love with Timor!”, said the Portuguese poet, anthropologist and agronomist Ruy Cinatti upon arriving on the island. From 1946 to 1974, he led a nomadic experiment, building a lasting relationship with Timor-Leste’s people and territory. The cultural identity he sought to protect is threatened by colonial oppression and the decline of the Portuguese Empire. Rejecting these circumstances, Cinatti reaches out to the people and its tribes, documenting rituals, filming, photographing and even making blood oaths with tribal chiefs to gain access to sacred places and become a Timorese.
Release Date:2024-10-16
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Sombras Brancas
At the age of 71, a highly regarded writer, José Cardoso Pires, suffers a major stroke and loses his memory and the ability to relate to the rest of the world. Everybody seems to defy the famous author to write another novel that recounts this adventure telling his "last story", the most conclusive of his career, the one of his accidental journey to the clear shadows territory.
Release Date:2023-04-20
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:2
Editor Contra
Release Date:2022-11-24
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
40 Years of Fantasporto
A journey through 40 years of life of the most important Film Festival in Portugal, through the voice of its President and Director, Mário Dorminsky and Beatriz Pacheco Pereira. Born at a coffee shop table in the "Invicta" - Porto City, with a subsidy of 15 "contos" (75EUR), since 1981 it hasn't stopped bringing us cinema, and given its weight and peculiarity, The project developed and soon became a reality, with the screening of several sessions a day, the realization of retrospectives and, also, in parallel, the promotion of concerts and art exhibitions. It is considered the biggest film festival in Portugal, and internationally recognized as one of the most important worldwide, and is now entering its 40th edition.
Release Date:2021-04-29
Character:Self
Nheengatu – The Language of the Amazon
Nheengatu – The Language of the Amazon takes us on a journey along the Negro River, on the trail of this language imposed on indigenous people by the first Portuguese colonialists who landed in Brazil in the 15th century. Throughout the various encounters with local communities that still speak this language, the director faces the different cultural, historical and social issues that confront tradition and future.
Release Date:2020-10-22
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
Variações: Guardian Angel
Film biography dwelling on the hectic artistic life of António Variações, a famous Portuguese pop rock singer from the 80s, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1984.
Release Date:2019-08-22
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:35
3 Mulheres
A historical fiction series that, from the biographies and cultural and civic intervention of the poet Natalia Correia, the editor Snu Abecassis and the journalist Vera Lagoa (pseudonym of Maria Armanda Falcão), recalls the last years of the Estado Novo (Second Republic) - 1961 to 1973 - from the beginning of the colonial War to the eve of the April Revolution.
Release Date:2018-10-26
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Episode Count:13
Vote Count:2
Apparition
A writer becomes the main character in the story he intended to write
Release Date:2018-03-22
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:1
I Was in Lisbon and Remembered You
"In the beginning of this project, I wanted to do a documentary film based on this book by Luiz Ruffato. However, I ended up doing a feature film with many links to documentary. I wanted to know what made Brazilians want to emigrate to Portugal. I chose working with amateur actors and non-actors in both cities, so their own life stories and experiences could be in the film. I did the other way round from the writer. He found these people and made them characters of his book. I looked for people who had similar stories to those described in the book, and made them characters of my film. When I read the book, I was seduced by its "false documentary" characteristic. The book was all written as if it was the transcription of an oral interview the writer had done in Lisbon. I decided to keep this narrative in the film, by a narration with the main character talking to the camera. It's a film about emigration. About dreams and disappointments," says Barahona
Release Date:2015-10-25
Department:Production
Job:Co-Producer
Vote Count:4
Road of Nothing
Life is as unchanging as ever in the village: the sun sets between memories. The arrival of a young outsider changes everything. The old are offered a new gift and they accept it. The dreams awaken an old song which pulses through the village. 'With Fate driving the cart of everything along the road of nothing.'
Release Date:2015-01-01
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Second Hand
Jorge is a loner and a writer of popular books. At night, he looks through other people's windows and thinks that they are truly happy.
Release Date:2013-06-19
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
Bobô
Sofia lives a strangely isolated life in the old apartment where she grew up in Lisbon. Mariama arrives from Guinea-Bissau, having been hired by Sofia’s mother to help take care of the house and her son. The appearance of Bobô, Mariama’s younger sister, awakens in Sofia the desire to take a stand. The forced cohabitation between Sofia and Mariama forces them to confront their own private ghosts.
Release Date:2013-04-23
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
The Great Kilapy
Zézé Gamboa's sardonic historical drama follows a good-hearted, apolitical con man who, on the eve of Angolan independence in the mid-1970s, pulls off a massive swindle at the expense of the Portuguese colonial administration — and soon after finds himself hailed as a hero of the national liberation struggle.
Release Date:2012-09-07
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:3
Impunidades Criminosas
Release Date:2012-04-26
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Éden
What remains of the 1940s and 1950s collective memory of Mindelo's two cinemas, and the two amateur groups who produced three 8mm films out of their love for cinema.
Release Date:2011-03-10
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Vote Count:1
The Social Division of Labor According to Adam Smith
Five workers on an assembly line at a large company based in an airport challenge the impossibility of changing the social division of labor, carried out in accordance with the classical principles of specialization and segmentation.
Release Date:2011-01-01
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Bloody Night
A group of soldiers are sentenced for the murders of key political figures in the night of October 19th, 1921, in the streets of Lisbon. But the names of the conspirators remain unknown. Berta Maia, a widow of the 1910 revolution hero Carlos da Maia, will fight for the truth…
Release Date:2010-10-23
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
Directo
A couple watches a bank robbery live on TV.
Release Date:2010-01-01
Department:Production
Job:Producer
L'arc-en-ciel
Quitterie, a 40 year-old woman, relives the great love for her deceased 18 year-old Japanese partner, by successively meeting up with young strangers.
Release Date:2009-10-21
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
O Dia do Regicídio
Release Date:2008-02-02
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Episode Count:1
As Minhas Férias
Release Date:2006-06-21
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Skin
Pele is a film about a young mulatto woman that in spite of being rich, beautiful and intelligent, feels discriminated because of the colour of her skin. The entire plot is in the early 70's, when Portugal had a dictatorial government, ultramarine territories and lots of racism in its society… Issues like racism, female condition and the spoilt lives of the high-society are the main themes of this movie
Release Date:2006-05-03
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:2
Bocage
Release Date:2006-01-13
Department:Creator
Job:Creator
Vote Count:1
The Hero
A 20-year veteran of the Angolan civil war returns to the capital city of Luanda where he faces the challenges of assimilation and survival.
Release Date:2004-05-13
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Vote Count:6
14 de Fevereiro (a 1 de Abril)
The life of a couple flickers between February 14th and April 1st of the same year.
Release Date:2003-04-11
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Almirante Reis
Release Date:2002-11-20
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Jogo da Glória
Rui, A teenage boy works in his father shop and has an old brother that is a policeman. His father is about to close the shop, because of money issues, and Rui needs to get money for him and also to help his father. By the hand of a friend he enters in the criminal world to make money.
Release Date:2002-03-19
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Light Drops
Rui was raised in Mozambique in a small village at the frontier of a mysterious river. Son of Portuguese colonists, his best friend is Ana, a black girl godchild of his mother. At fourteen he is confronted with the tragic destruction of his childhood and has to learn to recognize two distinct realities - the European and the African.
Release Date:2002-02-15
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Vote Count:7
Dribbling Fate
Life has moved too fast for Mane. at the age of 50 he watches the slow sacrifice of his ideals. His wife, Lucy, has locked him in to a daily routine. His work in a small commercial shop and grocer's has worn him out. His dreams have evaporated into the drought of the beaten earth of Mindelo. Now forgotten, with his past as a great football player for Mindelense, in St Vincent in Cape Verde, he only has the belated compassion of his friends, neighbours, and cafe companions: "He was important", "He was the keeper in Cape Verde", "He could have played for Benfica!" Mane rejects the loss of his status as a hero. When training a youth team he sees himself again in KALU, a rebellious but talented youth. He is guided by a whirlwind of thoughts; he was also young, had opportunities, felt the sting of love and wasted his flame. A beaten leather ball shines in his hands once again, Benfica, his club, calls him to the Portuguese Cup Final.
Release Date:1998-08-14
Department:Writing
Job:Writer
Vote Count:4
Un asunto privado
Alex is a famous singer who lives in a big mansion. One quiet night, a hooded stranger comes into his home, shoots the butler and then takes the mask out. Surprisingly, it's a woman. At the beginning she just want to have dinner with him.
Release Date:1996-05-17
Department:Production
Job:Production Manager
Vote Count:1
The Jew
The story of Brazilian Antônio José da Silva, a jewish poet, playwright and lawyer living in the 18th Century Lisbon, who managed to avoid Inquisition by converting himself to Catholicism, after being tortured. But his fierce criticism of Portugal's élite led him to persecution and torture, becoming kind of a scapegoat.
Release Date:1996-01-16
Department:Production
Job:Executive Producer
Vote Count:3
Fiesta
A Jekyll-and-Hyde colonel toughens up a 17-year-old aristocrat for the Spanish Civil War.
Release Date:1995-11-15
Department:Production
Job:Executive Producer
Vote Count:8
Runaways
Two girls meet on a train: Prune is looking for her father whom she has not seen since she was a little girl, Marina is looking for the mother she has never had. Prune learns that her father took his life and then she accidentally dies by drowning. Marina decides to assume her identity and begins a correspondence with Prune's mother.
Release Date:1995-08-23
Department:Production
Job:Executive Producer
Vote Count:1
Une femme dans la tourmente
Michèle is the new French consul in a South American country. She quickly discovers that the government is, in fact, a dictatorship. Moreover, her seventeen-year-old daughter is involved in the revolution against the regime.
Release Date:1995-02-19
Department:Production
Job:Associate Producer
The Eagle and the Horse
French Canadian TV-Movie
Release Date:1994-11-14
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Passagem por Lisboa
Lisbon, early 1940s. The neutral port town is an open door to freedom, for those who are escaping the Nazi occupied France and eastern European countries, and a war field for spies of every description. Lisbon became a cosmopolitan town, where the Duke of Windsor, Primo de Rivera, Pola Negri, Leslie Howard, Walter Schellenberg and Juan Garcia are often together in the luxury hotels and night-clubs. Espionage and crime go hand in hand, despite of, or encouraged by, the Portuguese secret police.
Release Date:1994-09-29
Department:Directing
Job:Assistant Director
Vote Count:2
The Survivors
Mid-19th century. A group of survivors from a wrecked slave ship, both black and white, end up on a deserted island, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. The fight for survival and power will flip the moral and social values of those days.
Department:Production
Job:Producer
Vote Count:1
Amok
Whenever people are released from their society's constraints, there is the possibility that they will behave badly, at least according to the rules of the society they have left behind. This seems to have been particularly the case for Europeans living in colonial establishments in Africa and Asia. In this drama, based on a story by Stefan Zweig, Dr. Steiner (Andrzej Seweryn) was caught with his fingers in the till at a German hospital. Rather than prosecute him, they gave him the option of emigrating elsewhere. He chose to serve at a clinic in a remote part of Portuguese Goa. He has been on his best behavior for years, but when the beautiful wife (Fanny Ardant) of a diplomat comes to him asking for an abortion, he is tempted to ask for sexual favors in return, and his life swiftly goes out of control.
Release Date:1993-10-09
Department:Directing
Job:Assistant Director
Vote Count:2
Hovering Over the Water
Laura Rossellini, a widow from Rome, vacations on the Algarve coast one hot summer. One day while sunbathing, she finds a wounded man named Robert drifting in the surf on a rubber raft. She takes him home, and, after he is revived, learns his story. As they talk, their mutual attraction grows, until a group of armed men suddenly arrive looking for Robert.
Release Date:1993-02-24
Department:Directing
Job:Continuity
Vote Count:16
Belle Époque
In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.
Release Date:1992-12-04
Department:Production
Job:Unit Production Manager
Vote Count:183
El invierno en Lisboa
Jim is the drummer for the great black musician Billy Swann. With him, he plays in a club called San Sebastián, owned by his friend Floro, every summer.
Release Date:1991-04-12
Department:Directing
Job:Assistant Director
Vote Count:1
The Cannibals
This odd film is a major representative of an even odder film genre: direct-to-celluloid opera. It was commissioned by the Portuguese master of style, director Manoel de Oliveira from composer João Paes. Musically, it ranges from 19th-century romanticism to popular, modernist and even "post-modernist" styles. In the initially tame story, a host-narrator tells the story of a wedding between the two lovebirds: Viscount d'Aveleda and the beautiful Marguerite. However, what happens in the bridal chamber is incredibly bizarre. The events after that are even stranger, and the wedding guests and family indulge in cannibalism, among other perversions.
Release Date:1988-11-10
Department:Directing
Job:Assistant Director
Vote Count:18
Repórter X
A story about character created by Reinaldo Ferreira (1897-1935), action reporter, mystery novelist and emotion journalist.
Release Date:1987-05-22
Department:Directing
Job:Assistant Director
Treasure Island
Jim is a small child who lives in an inn run by his parents. The arrival of a strange captain to the Island they live will trouble his existence and tip him into an universe of adventures.
Release Date:1986-01-01
Department:Directing
Job:Script Supervisor
Vote Count:10
3 Mulheres Pós-Revolução
Department:Directing
Job:Director
Episode Count:1