“María Inês” is a short film that lingers in the quiet space between words, where emotions are felt but never quite spoken. Set in Sines, Portugal, on the last day of summer, it follows two friends as they navigate the inevitable weight of goodbye. One of them, lost in thought, already feels the absence creeping in before the moment has even passed. It’s a film about the things left unsaid, about the way time speeds up when you’re desperate for it to slow down, and about how goodbyes rarely happen in a single moment—they build up in glances, in silences, in the air between two people who know something is ending.
The film is the result of a creative collaboration between director and photographer João Carmo and cinematographer Pablo Garrido Carreras. Shot over two days, on 16mm film, with an SR3 camera and a close group of friends, it was born from a shared desire to explore emotion through imagery. More than just a technical exercise, the project was an opportunity to craft a film that feels both visually striking and deeply human—a quiet meditation on connection, distance, and the fleeting nature of time.