In his first film, Gomes unleashes a hyperactive and circular search for lost youth that spirals around a group of almost middle-aged Peter Pan men devoted to obscurely ceremonial games with wild, fantastical rules. Sequestered in a cottage deep in the woods, the friends care as intensely for one another as they do the games that keep them detached from the rest of the world. Gomes’ talent at using music to guide and reinvent narrative and movement within the frame is revealed by the storybook tableaux that recur throughout his delightful debut film.

One of Gomes’ most stylistically accomplished early shorts, Entretanto is a quirky portrait of a ménage a trois between two soccer teammates and a sultry gamin. Making playful use of off-screen space and a lively soundtrack, Gomes’ romantic comedy is animated by the deadpan humor of delayed reaction so essential to contemporary Portuguese cinema.

A humorous yet ardently sincere religious music video about Saint Francis, Gomes’ early work brings fuses the bright kitsch tableaux of Pierre and Giles with the plastic sincerity of a glow-in-the-dark rosary.