THURSDAY 20 NOV – H 21:00 – ROOM 3

THE LUMINOUS LIFE Vida Luminosa
PORTUGAL, FRANCE – 2025 – 99’

Direction: João Rosas
Screenplay: João Rosas
Cinematography: Paulo Menezes
Editing: Luís Miguel Correia
Music: Leo Heiblum
Production design: Cláudia Lopes Costa
Cast: Francisco Melo (Nicolau), Cécile Matignon (Chloé), Margarida Dias (Inês), Federica Balbi (Anna), Gemma Tria (Emma), Ângela Ramos (Matilde), Francisca Alarcão (Mariana)
Producer: Pedro Borges in coproduction with François D’Artemare
Production: Midas Filmes (Pt) in coproduction with Les Films de L’Après-Midi(Fr)
World Sales: Loco Films

Synopsis
Springtime in Lisbon and Nicolau turns 24, but doesn’t celebrate. Living at his parents’ house, hostage to a dream of becoming a musician that never comes true and trapped in the ideal image of an ex-girlfriend who left him a year ago and never came back, Nicolau feels unable of moving forward and inventing a life of his own. He takes odd jobs that don’t allow him to leave his parents’ house, until the day he discovers that his mother is just as unsatisfied with her life as he is. Nicolau is shaken, but doesn’t fall. On the contrary, he moves forward. He gets a job in a stationery store, moves in to a shared house, and life starts rolling again. And with life, his dreams and his heart. Up ahead, a girl and an island.

the director: JOÃO ROSAS
João Rosas (1981) is the author of three collections of short stories and various documentaries and short films, such as A minha mãeé pianista(My mother is a pianist, 2005),Birth of a City(2009), Entrecampos (2012), Maria do Mar (2015), the latter premiered in Locarno and prizewinner in Portugal, Spain and Brazil, as well as Catavento (2020), which won the prize for Best Short Film at BAFICI 2021 and a Special Mention from the Jury at the Festival du Cinéma de Brive. His latest documentary, A Morte de uma Cidade (Death of a City, 2022) won the DocAlliance Award 2023 for Best Feature. A Vida Luminosa (The Luminous Life) is his first feature-length fiction film.

director’s statement
“I came to cinema through the city and the stories that are born from the city, and it’s due to my deep desire to continue telling this story and bringing these characters to life that I come to this film. I wrote it in one breath, as if the film already existed somewhere out there, on the streets of Lisbon, just waiting for my saying Action! to gain body and movement. The Luminous Life continues the fictional universe that began in 2012 with Entrecampos and inhabited by the characters of Nicolau, Mariana and Simão, whose lives, adventures and transformations I have been inventing and following since then in my two subsequent short films. After having portrayed Nicolau as a child, at 11, as Mariana’s friend in Entrecampos; at 14, as the teenage protagonist who awakens to sexuality in Maria do Mar; and at 18 when he enters college in Catavento, I now propose to portray with lightness, sensitivity and humour, Nicolau’s sentimental education in his reluctant farewell to youth. After all, what adult life will he be able to build from what he has lived until then? This is in fact his fundamental doubt; the one that is at the beginning of the film and that his journeys and encounters around the city will only help to complicate.”

filmography
2005 A minha mãe é pianista (My mother is a pianist, short)
2009 Birth of a City (doc.)
2012 Entrecampos (short)
2015 Maria do Mar (short)
2020 Catavento (short)
2022 A Morte de uma Cidade (doc.)
2025 A Vida Luminosa (The Luminous Life)

awards and festivals
2025 Karlovy Vary IFF – Crystal Globe Competition
2025 IndieLisboa Int. Independent FF – National Competition
2025 SEMINCI, Valladolid – Meeting Point
2025 Rio de Janeiro IFF – Expectations
2025 El Gouna FF
2025 Panorama of the European Film, Egypt