Best Portuguese animation movies

Evildoers, and everyone else, beware! Mermaidman and Barnacleboy have opened their locker of memories for SpongeBob and Patrick (MISTAKE!), the Dirty Bubble, Man Ray, The Atomic Flounder and The Sinister Slug have gathered in Bikini Bottom, Mrs. Puff's working the summer at the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob's attempting to go a full day without crying, Gary's new play pal Puffy Fluffy is a real terror, Squidward cleans up Bikini Bottom with "help" from SpongeBob, SpongeBob and Patrick try to share a toy, SpongeBob nearly ruins Mr. Krabs' tightwad reputation at the Cheapest Crab Convention, and oceans more!

Bruno Aleixo has an accident the week before Christmas, leaving him in a coma. However, doctors are unanimous: they do not give a physiological reason for this comatose state, so they conclude that it is of a psychological nature. Bruno Aleixo, an assumed hater of the Christmas spirit, simply refuses to wake up. Using the recognized archetype of Charles Dickens' Christmas Tale, sleeping Bruno Aleixo relives, in dreams, several traumatic Christmases of the past, present and future.

A girl whose heart beats faster than normal and so loudly that it bothers the neighbors seeks both acceptance and escape.

This is the story of a sixty day long walk in Cape Verde. No mobile phone, no watch, no plans for what to do next – only the bare essentials in the backpack. Out traveller explores the mountains, the villages, the sea, a talking tortoise, the goats, the music, the dry haze, the people of Cape Verde and an essential part of himself.

A scientist seeks answers by observing the world through the lens of her microscope.

Loose animated sequences, recovered by Cinemateca Portuguesa through the Tobis Portuguesa labs, from several reels of nitrate film damaged by time. Although incomplete, it is the oldest known portuguese animated film from which some original film actualy survived.

Natália, trapped in a tedious routine, leaves in search of a stolen heart. In a surreal world where hearts are the common currency, she endures several perils, in order to decide if she wants to give her heart up or keep it for herself.

Somewhere between reality and fantasy, a woman's consciousness is awoken through her inner journey that reflects the world around her.

This is a film about how war settles in the bodies of the people who are forced to experience it directly. And then, thousands of miles away and dozens of years ahead, how, like a virus, it can still infect other human beings.

Dr. K is an old man who loves hiking, always curious and looking for new knowledge. At some point along the way, strange and mysterious objects appear on your way. Little by little, Dr. K realizes that the objects will actually help him unravel a much bigger mystery: the right techniques for creating an animation.

The pieces silently start gathering into the room, while the giants, unaware, keep living their macabre routines.

This is the story about a boy not like the others that dreams about finding his place in the world.

TuTiTu is a series of successful 3D animated videos for children 2-3 years old. Young viewers are introduced to a nice red hovercraft called TuTiTu, which guides in exploring the "building blocks" version of the world. In each episode "toys come to life", where colored shapes are transformed into an exciting new toy, which lead the child to identify the name of the toy.

In the last moments before giving birth, a mother sees how some moments of her life and her child are similar.

In this animated fairy-tale Filly, a lesbian fairy with nimble fingers, seduces women by day dressed as a boy. But at night something strange happens and soon half the population of Whatsit Village are eagerly queuing up.

It's the story of a child and her mother, two lives that don't communicate with each other. Is that loneliness that sometimes reaches the size of the night. Dark is the night. Dark is the mother. And dark becomes the entire Universe when you are alone and abandoned.

K just crashed his Mercedes-Benz into a tree, moments after trying to avoid running down a small wild animal that ran across his path. He is on a backwater road in the countryside and it’s a very dark night. His evening has only just begun...

In 1972, Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa published the book As Novas Cartas Portuguesas [New Portuguese Letters], addressing topics forbidden and censored during the Estado Novo regime such as the colonial war, adultery, rape and abortion. The book was immediately banned and the writers were prosecuted for crimes against morality. The legal proceedings caused waves of protest around the world, giving rise to an international network of solidarity. In the film, the “three Marias” tell their story, before and after one the first major feminist struggles in Portugal.

Inspired by popular cult, O COVEIRO is part light part darkness, a bedtime story and almost a nightmare. A child is born and his parents die of fright just to see him. André Gil Mata revisits the traditional Portuguese tale, in a fantastic movie where heads bounce, but you hear a song.

Quick cutting provides the speed in this tribute to two wheeled transport.

A corridor of an apartment is transformed into a claustrophobic and vertiginous vortex that swallows and imprisons you in an infinite fall through a mise en abyme: it’s a pure enclosure inside the image world, it’s the Descent into the Maelstrom.

Dodu, a fearless little cardboard boy, Camilla, an enchanting 8-year-old girl and Santa, a Father Christmas for every day, rescue Camilla’s father from the claws of the Waste Monster. As part of their adventure they recycle the wrapping paper from the Christmas presents and are able to breathe in pure air with all Sky-Forests ad Earth-Forests.

Gisberta Salce, called Gis by her friends and family, was a Brazilian trans woman who was tortured for days and at last brutally murdered by 14 young men in Portugal in 2006.

The last habitants of a village refuse to let themselves sink into oblivion.

A poem. A tale made of silence and complicity. Light and shadows, the charm of the night, the moon as a passion... This is a tale about someone who tried to make the dream come true. This is the tale about the cat and the moon.

A nun is called upon to adopt her 15-year-old nephew, and as a consequence religious, familial and sensual love become entangled.

A train compartment, four people, a ticket collector, a Barcelos penknife and a potential assassin. Will they all make it to the end of the journey?

Odd is terrified of his head, until one day he falls in love with Gunn who is both fearless and happy in life. Odd's life is turned upside down and he is freed from his worries in the most unexpected way.

This is a love story full of encounters and mismatches, in which resides a constant presence of an incessant search for the relationships of happiness and self- esteem between the two characters.

"A new born light enters the world, but slowly begins to adapt, to fit in, conditioned by expectations, until the light fades away slowly and it's too late to turn back to it's true self." Lights is a simple metaphor that visually examines all those feelings, dreams and possibilities that we unconsciously let go of during our life as we slowly adapt to what surrounds us. Step by step we leave behind our true selves, something that slowly fades away in the background, like a shadow we only half remember. When our time comes to move on, if we finally look back to what could have been, we may think "what if..."

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who, even when out and about, was always distracted. Eyes fixed on her phone, she didn’t notice the world around her or anyone who wanted to play. What could be done to “disoccupy” her eyes?

One guy, whom we can call X, leads a monotonous life with work, family and football. But one day the club loses ...

What if inside each person exist an unique song, a genetic code composed by notes and musical scale, a melody that reflects what we are as human beings, as a person, our qualities, faults, our fears, our forces, all what’s good and evil that pulses in our veins? Imagine now that you had the skill to hear those melodies, the gift of listening to people. The gift or maybe it’s the curs? This is the story of a man with that ability…

An erotic animation with adult bodies and in watercolors, where they mix in multicolored and intimate poses.

It’s like soot that rests on the walls of our head. We can’t see it. It belongs there already.

A TV set awakens and tries to tune himself in, but with no success. When he accidentally comes across the weather channel, it’s the weather girl, rather than the weather, which catches his attention...

The Caricas "are the new stars of the Canal Panda: four young fun and prone to joking; personalities and characteristics, but inseparable. It is the continuation of the line entertainment and content to "learn to play".

A brief story about the power of the wind: it erases lines, destroys houses and carries people. The blow that creates men, uniting them or separating them.

Candide never loved her. Manipulation is his favourite game.

It's time for Pluto's All-Star Pet Show at Minnie's Pet Salon.

A strange golden insect crawls into a bedroom on a stifling summer night. As it invades the sleeping body, the walls begin to shift and pulse — and the nightmare begins.

In a rocky island exposed to the elements, a lighthouse keeper lives alone with his daughter. From the top of his tower, the father keeps vigil to the horizon line and for the safety of the passing sails. With no other company, the girl develops a unique complicity with the sea, which brings her toys in the shape of debris on the shore. Following the rhythm of the waves, these objects will unveil previous events, memories that the tide cannot erase…

War, loneliness, nature, journeys, fallen dreams are some of the recurring aspects in this animated poem on paper.

In the 40's, after the Spanish Civil War, many republicans defeated by the nationalist forces of Franco found refuge on the bordering mountains in the north of Portugal. Some saw them as brigands, others gave them shelter and helped them on the sly to police forces of Salazar. They were... the Outlaws.

A rescued poem, written by the neorealist Álvaro Feijó in 1940, brings it back to the days that imitate it. Slowly settling in the hearts of men and women who become hostage to her grace, there she is revealing all her nature, at the same time as she utters his name unmercifully.

God and Jesus on a psychologist's couch to resolve family tensions.

Short animation film about the fear of singing in public

Man and boy play a futile game of chess in the middle of nowhere. An internal struggle between what is and what can no longer be.

This humorous animated short offers one possible answer to the philosophical question: what would life be like if I had never lived? The first half of the film follows a man from his conception to his funeral, focusing on the effect his life has on the people and events around him. The second half looks again at the same people and events, except now the man is not there - he had never been born. The differences will surprise you!

Considered as the first Portuguese animated film, it shows António Maria da Silva, at the time the President of the Ministery of the 1st Republic of Portugal, who is returning home after another day's work. Of this silent movie, a digital reconstitution was made in 2006, from the original drawings, accompanied by an improvised piano score by maestro António Victorino d'Almeida.

In a world where iron and land mix themselves creating unexpected cities, the wind blows life among leaves in the eternal rebirth cycle. This is the wind’s embrace.

In a city where nature has been forbidden, a small crime by a simple man triggers a chain of unexpected consequences.

Stop motion animation by Alexandre Siqueira

The opening credits of the festival "Odyssey mas imagens" in Porto in 2001. (25 Sec. )

Second movie from the Panda e os Caricas series

On a hot August afternoon, the family gather at the table and remember Uncle Botão: the Colonial War, and emigration to France where he lived and worked for thirty years as a garbage man.

The story of an egg trapped inside a frying-pan trying to escape its fate, symbolized by a huge spatula, determined to attack him.

Nebula Studios presents the story of a hungry lab bunny who accidentally gives life to his favorite food and now he needs to make unexpected alliances against a bigger threat.

A bench who wants to be just like other benches.

A little girl tries to outwit the ghoul chasing her.

They say that nature hates a vacuum but there’s a lot of empty gaps out there.