Short Films by Miguel Gomes
Portuguese critic-turned-filmmaker Miguel Gomes has often described his films as “musical comedies”—a term that coyly obscures their beguiling, postmodern blends of documentary and fiction; of mirth and melancholy. Go beyond his laurelled festival hits like "Grand Tour" (2024) and "Tabu" (2012) with this collection of early shorts; a prismatic showcase for his keen-eyed, casually inventive style and well-honed sense of play.
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Kalkitos
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 19 mins | 2002
A short as puckish as the kids it depicts, in which a soccer game is rendered absurd by the fact that these self-proclaimed ten-year-olds are played by adults. In place of speech, they just mash their mouths together, with the translation supplied by sile... -
Pre Evolution Soccer's One-Minute Dance After a Golden Goal in the Master League
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 1 min | 2004
“Cinema is a game,” Gomes has said—a statement especially true of this briefest of shorts, a machinima that delights in the glitchy rhythms of the celebratory motions made by players in the Playstation game Pro Evolution Soccer. -
31
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 27 mins | 2003
What does Portugal’s 1974 Carnation Revolution have to do with "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)? This is a riddle set up but not exactly answered by this endearingly lo-fi parable about two rich kids who, after getting mugged during a tennis lesson, forge a wind... -
Canticle of All Creatures
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 21 mins | 2006
This playful but sincere tribute to St. Francis takes the form of a cinematic triptych. From the present day, in which a guitar-wielding bard ambles through the historic center of Assisi, Gomes jumps back 800 years, reviving the saint himself in a lusciou... -
Meanwhile
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 23 mins | 1999
Two decades before "The Tsugua Diaries" (2021), Gomes would make his assured debut with another film that fused summer languor and simmering tensions with expertly deployed pop music cues. The teen love triangle of Meanwhile drifts from rugby training to ... -
Christmas Inventory
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 22 mins | 2000
In this early work by the beloved and formally daring Portuguese auteur, the portrayal of a multi-generational Yuletide family gathering gives way to documentation of the season’s chintzy and charming accouterments: tinsel twinkles, baubles bob, and a Spi...
