Dados * 2020
Megalito Media (Porto, Portugal)

Dados [Dice] is a short film about control, vulnerability, and the seductive freedom of chance. After a breakup framed by a cruel accusation  - “you control everything” - Maria finds herself drifting through the city with a small box of D&D dice, turning everyday decisions into rituals of randomness. She rolls to decide whether to give the dice away, what to buy, what to eat, and, most dangerously, whether to open herself again to affection. As the rolls accumulate, the film becomes a playful meditation on agency: the dice operate both as prop and philosophy, a miniature algorithm for desire. Maria’s gamble unexpectedly leads her to Miguel, a waiter whose quiet presence destabilizes her self-protective logic, until the film’s final turn, where intimacy is no longer a number she can outsource to fate.

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António Baía Reis performs the leading male role (Miguel), anchoring the film’s emotional counterweight: an invitation to risk tenderness without turning love into a system.

 

Selected festivals / awards:

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• 10th RITWIK Honorary Award & Film Festival (2021)

• Best International Short Film — Museum Talkies International Film Festival (2021)

• Official Selection — Kautik International Film Festival (2021)

• 2nd Chandigarh Music and Film Festival (2022)

• 1st Jahangirnagar Independent Film Festival (2022)

 

Credits:
Director: Carlos Coelho Costa · Script: Maria Meireles · Producers: Maria Meireles, Carlos Coelho Costa · DP: Manuel Pinto Barros · Art Direction: Susana Grilo · Editing: Ricardo Sobral · Sound Design: Bruno Afonso · Cast: António Baía Reis, Mariana Sampaio