From October 10 to 18, Seia will once again be the center of world environmental cinema. The Official Selection of films in competition at the 31st edition of CineEco – Serra da Estrela International Environmental Film Festival has now been revealed. There are 81 international and Portuguese-language feature, medium-length and short films in the competition, filmed in 31 countries and with a variety of angles of approach, with the Environment as their cross-cutting theme.

CineEco – Serra da Estrela International Environmental Film Festival, one of Europe’s leading environmental film festivals, is celebrating its first anniversary this year. 31st edition. From October 10th to 18th, Seia, right at the foot of the highest mountain in mainland Portugal, Serra da Estrela, is once again the center of reflection, debate and knowledge-sharing on climate and environmental issues.

This year, the festival presents an official selection of 81 international and Portuguese-language feature, medium-length and short films from 31 countries, offering a rich and diverse cinematic mosaic of contemporary environmental challenges.

In the International Selection of Feature Films, we should highlight a group of ten works that are absolute premieres in Portugal, where the human factor is always decisive in the investigation, observation or experience of a dimension of the climate crisis.

Let’s start with two indictment films: WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, by Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos, Jon Shenk, USA, which explores the dramatic story of the origin of the climate crisis and how a political battle in George H.W. Bush’s administration changed the course of history. Bush changed the course of history. In the same vein, BLACK SNOW, by Alina Simone, USA, the film centers on a Siberian eco-activist, dubbed the“Erin Brockovich of Russia“, who fights for her community.

The subtle comedy CLIMATE IN THERAPY, by Nathan Grossman, Olof Berglind, Malin Olofsson, Sweden, puts seven climate scientists through therapy to deal with their own emotions. The documentary drama, A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS, by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Norway, follows a family seeking a free and wild existence. The dark tale PET FARM, by Finn Walther, Martin A. Walther, Norway, deepens the emotional bonds with animals. This relationship is also seen in MILCH INS FEUER (Smell of Burnt Milk), by Justine Bauer, Germany, a rural meditation on the meaning of being a modern farmer, femininity and motherhood.

The most striking places in this program appear in THE TOWN THAT DROVE AWAY, by Grzegorz Piekarski, Natalia Pietsch, Poland, filmed in Kurdistan with the last residents of a secular town threatened when the Turkish government floods their land. KATWE, Nima Shirali, Uganda/Sweden, filmed on an African salt lake where extraction has ceased to sustain a community, and XUE SHUI XIAO RONG DE JI JIE (After the Snowmelt), by Yi-Shan Lo, Taiwan/Japan, portrays a tragic expedition in the Himalayas.

The International Official Selection is completed by the animated feature ANGEL IN THE MAGICAL FOREST, by Alexis Ducord, Vincent Paronnaud, France/Luxembourg, about a ten-year-old boy who dreams of becoming an explorer and zoologist.

In the Selection of Feature Films in Portuguese, the national premiere of the Brazilian documentary TESOURO NATTERER, by Renato Barbieri, stands out. The big winner of the 2024 edition of É Tudo Verdade, Latin America’s leading documentary festival, the film tells the story of an Austrian indigenist’s unknown adventure through the Amazon in the 19th century. The same theme of the foreign and exotic gaze on the great Brazilian forest returns from another perspective in the essayistic and provocative NO MORE HISTORY WITHOUT US, by Priscilla Brasil. The Amazon also appears in Christiane Garcia’s fiction ENQUANTO O CÉU NÃO ME ESPERA. Starring the Brazilian Irandhir Santos, the film tells the story of the drama experienced by riverside populations as a result of the disruption to the rain cycle caused by climate change.

From the Amazon, the Portuguese-language competition heads to Luanda, where the documentary LINHA DE ÁGUA, by Rui Simões , portrays the unique work of Angolan artist Victor Gama, who combines nature and sound experimentation. In Portugal, director Marta Pessoa takes an aesthetic and poetic stroll through Lisbon’s gardens in ISTO NÃO É UM JARDIM . And Indian filmmaker Kopal Joshy goes to Serra da Estrela, where she strikes up an unexpected and moving friendship with a former local resident in the documentary SOMOS DOIS ABISMOS.

In this official selection of CineEco 2025, we also have the Competition of Short and Medium Length Films, both international and in Portuguese. Among the international ones, we highlight the documentary short A QUI LE MONDE (Blooming), by Marina Russo Villani and Victor Missud, France, which had its premiere at the Rencontres Internacionales in Paris and Berlin and won this year’s Green Festival Award. The Portuguese-Croatian production THAT’S HOW I LOVE YOU, by Mário Macedo, won the Grand Prize at last year’s Curtas Vila do Conde and PET FARM, by Norwegian Martin A. Walther, won an honorable mention at this year’s Thessaloniki Film Festival in Thessaloniki. Gonçalo Almeida‘s multi-award-winning horror film ATOM & VOID won this year’s Méliès d’Argent at the HÕFF – Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, in Estonia, and an Honorable Mention at Fantastic Fest, USA, last year. As for the Portuguese-language short films, the highlights are the Portuguese-Brazilian co-productions: ENXOFRE , by Karen Akerman and Miguel Seabra Lopes , TEMPO DE SORRIR (Time to Smile), by Jonas Almeida Braga Amarante, and CANTOS DA METAMORFOSE OU AQUELA VEZ EM QUE EU ENCARNEI COMO BOTO, by Ainá Xisto.

No less important is the Regional Panorama Competitive Section, dedicated to films with narratives centered on the territory and the Serra da Estrela, which this year includes O ÚLTIMO PASTOR DE SABUGUEIRO, by Laurène da Palma Cavaco, O INCÊNDIO, by Joana Cabete, SOMOS TWISMOS (We are two Abysses), by Kopal Joshy, TALHADOS NA PEDRA, by Tiago Cerveira, MONTAÑA ABAIXO (Down the Mountain), by Carlos Martínez-Peñalver Mas, and PORTA-TE BEM, by Joana Alves.

It should be noted that this year, for the first time, CineEco includes a new category in the competition for Fiction, Non-Fiction and Animation Short Films, in which 13 films from 12 countries are competing.

SEE THE FULL LIST OF OFFICIAL CINEECO 2025 SELECTIONS