Latest news and stories about film festivals in Portugal for expats and residents.
Almodóvar leading a strong Spanish presence. The official selection is still to be completed in the coming days.
There is a whole body of contemporary cinema, from diverse geographical and cultural origins, based on a moralistic and supposedly redemptive 'idea' that younger generations spend their time rescuing the more or less obscure memories of their parents. Premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Romaria, written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón, is another illuminating example of the style, and above all, the limitations of such cinema. While generational shifts are a suggestive mirror of the divides between the 'old' and the 'new', there is a difference between summoning a gallery of human figures to understand their singularities and doing so to guarantee a 'message' that seems decided and stated before any narrative work begins. Set in 2004, the film follows 18-year-old Marina (Llúcia Garcia) visiting relatives in Vigo on a dual quest: to obtain a scholarship to study film and to discover the final days of her father. A latent pain seems to contaminate everyone, even as Marina, attempting to 'return' to her parents' time of courtship, struggles most with a past that contains facts repressed by her family. The emotional truth of the narrative is not in question, especially as the director has stated it is based on her own memories and family history. The question remains as to what cinematic work is done with this material. The film relies on a currently common model, shot with a handheld camera in a 'reportage' style where the vibration of spaces is little more than decorative, lacking a consistent sense of the dramatic value of time. Complications arise in the final third when, needing to resolve the intersecting plot lines, Romaria proposes a revisit to the parents' youth, casting Llúcia Garcia as her own mother and Mitch Martín as the father—the same actor who plays Nuno, one of Marina's cousins. The long flashback sequence, with its redundant symbolism and inevitable 'descriptive' voice-over, is symptomatic of the narrative limits of this vision that believes in the redemption of the young. It is a touching vision, certainly—but it remains to be seen if it is enough to create cinema that is more than just soap-operatic.
The 2026 support programmes for cinema and audiovisuals opened this Tuesday with a budget of 33.3 million euros, an increase of 2.7 million euros compared to 2025, revealed the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual (ICA). According to the ICA's statement of priorities, support for the organisation of film festivals...
Support for film festivals, which is multi-annual (three years), opened with a budget of 3.3 million euros, an increase of 600,000 euros compared to the competition that opened in 2023.
Palme d'Or winner at Cannes and nominated for two Oscars (Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay), “Hit the Road” by Jafar Panahi could be a new gateway into contemporary Iranian cinema.
