AMONG THE WOLVES

Tanguy Dumortier e Olivier Larrey, France and Belgium, Documentary, 2023, 81’

Sharing an entire year in the life of a pack of wild wolves… a dream for Yves the painter and Olivier the photographer. Somewhere in the no-man’s-land between Finland and Russia, they’ll be waiting for the pack, in a hut just a few meters square. Throughout the four seasons, motionless and silent in the midst of an unchanging scenery, they gradually become part of the “picture” and immerse themselves in the life of the wolves.

BOTTLEMEN

Nemanja Vojinović, Serbia e Slovenia, Documentary, 2023, 143’

On the outskirts of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, lies one of the biggest landfills in Europe – Vinča. Once an archaeological site of the European neolithic, this toxic place, unsettled by fires, is a workplace for a community of plastic bottle collectors – Bottlemen. In this documentary-western, we follow the last days of this community before their jobs become obsolete, as we focus on the struggle of a good-hearted boxer, Yanika, to be a group leader in a chaotic system.

COMMON GROUND

Joshua Tickell e Rebecca Harrell Tickell, United States of America, Documentary, 2023, 105’

COMMON GROUND is the highly anticipated sequel to the juggernaut success documentary, Kiss the Ground which touched over 1 billion people globally and inspired the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. By fusing journalistic expose’ with deeply personal stories from those in the front lines of the sustainable food movement, COMMON GROUND unveils a dark web of money, power, and politics behind our broken food system. The film reveals how racist practices forged our current farm system in which farmers of all colours are literally dying to feed us. The film profiles a hopeful and uplifting movement of white, black, and indigenous farmers who are using alternative “regenerative” models of agriculture that could balance the climate, save our health, and stabilize America’s economy - before it’s too late.

FAUNA

Pau Faus, Spain, Documentary, 2023, 74′

In a forest, on the outskirts of Barcelona, an old shepherd and his flock live together with a high-tech laboratory for animal experimentation. Two opposite worlds facing each other. Two worlds that are two sides of the same coin. While the shepherd -who is sick with a bone disease- sees how his profession disappears, the scientists are busier than ever researching the Covid vaccine. ‘Fauna’ is a reflection on the relationship between humans, animals and science in times of pandemic.

FLOW

Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, France, Belgium, Animation, 2024, 84'

The world seems to be coming to an end, teeming with the vestiges of a human presence. Cat is a solitary animal, but as his home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences. In the lonesome boat sailing through mystical overflowed landscapes, they navigate the challenges and dangers of adapting to this new world.

GERLACH

Aliona van der Horst e Luuk Bouwman, The Netherlands, Documentary, 2023, 77’

GERLACH is a loving and humorous portrait of arable farmer Gerlach, who has been farming in the shadow of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol for sixty years. Around him, he has seen everything change. His simple wooden house is now wedged in between a Shell petrol station, a McDonalds outlet and various distribution centres. With great dedication he cares for his beets and grains, while property developers eye his land and climate change disrupts his harvest. Despite everything that comes his way, Gerlach stands tall with his down-to-earth humour, helped by his loving brothers and friends. His little house is the raindrop in which the world is reflected, existentialist and absurdist.

I AM THE RIVER, THE RIVER IS ME

Petr Lom, The Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand, Documentary, 2024, 89’

A canoe trip down the Whanganui River in New Zealand, led by a Maori elder, awakens spiritual belief and practice, and becomes a call to action to draw closer to nature and fight climate change through a fundamental value shift.

LA GARDE BLANCHE

Julien Elie, Canada, Documentary, 2023, 109’

The Mexican landscape fades away into ashes and dust, fragmented, defaced and scorched. Behind barbed wire fences, forests, rivers and mountains fall to the hands of private companies. Once transformed, the landscape becomes a separate universe, an incongruous and dangerous area where the new masters and their mercenaries terrorize people into silence.
Like other farmers from across the country, Roberto de la Rosa now walks on pathways riddled with booby traps. In recent years, it’s in Mexico that the number of defenders of the land assassinated has been highest.

ONE WITH THE WHALE

Peter Chelkowski e Jim Wickens, United States of America and United Kingdom, Documentary, 2023, 90’

Hunting whales is a matter of life or death for the residents of St. Lawrence, a tiny island in the Bering Sea. So, when Chris Agra Apassingok becomes the youngest person to ever harpoon a whale for his Alaskan village, his mother proudly shares the news on Facebook. To her surprise, thousands of keyboard activists brutally attack Chris without fully understanding the scope of his accomplishment.
ONE WITH THE WHALE is a thrilling yet heartwarming story of one family’s struggle to rebuild their shattered identities and find a way to live with Ancient Indigenous values in the fast-paced, cruel modern world.

XUE BAO
Snow Leopard

Pema Tseden, China, Fiction, 2023, 109′

An unexpected incident of a snow leopard breaking into the sheep pen of a local herder and killing nine rams not only causes a stir in the family, but also attracts a TV crew into the village…

A MENINA E O POTE
The Girl and the Pot

Valentina Homem, Brazil, Animation, 2024, 12’

In a dystopian world, the Girl breaks her ceramic pot, which holds a secret within. The breaking of the pot opens portals to a parallel universe and the girl enters a time of transformation in which the creation of a new world is finally possible.

A POIL!

Audrey Clemens, France, Documentary, Experimental, 2024, 17’32’’

At the scale of hairs, we discover an unknown planet. However, this is our body. By giving a voice to two hairs, the film questions our relationship to ourselves, others living beings, and the Earth.

ABBA

Fabiana Lupo, Italy, Sci-Fi, 2023, 15’

A journey across the universe in search of water to survive.
A journey in search of oneself.
The extreme experience of the protagonist of the story is the daily experience of the human being.

AU 8ÈME JOUR
On The 8th Day

Agathe Sénéchal, Alicia Massez, Elise Debruyne, Flavie Carin e Théo Duhautois, France, Animation, 2023, 8’

It took 7 days to create the world, it only took one to disrupt its balance.

BIRD DRONE

Radheya Jegatheva, Australia, Animation, 2023, 9’

Lonely seagull Sammy is unlucky in love - all the birds around him seem to be sharing their foraged snacks, pairing up and leaving him behind. When he encounters an elegant (and interested!) drone, Sammy finally believes he’s found the relationship he’s been looking for. But their sun drenched romance is threatened when the drone begins to runs out of battery life and fly back to its human controller. Putting his life at risk to save his new love, Sammy is forced to grapple with the reality of a potential future with a partner that may never return his feelings.

BIRTH OF LIGHT

Jasmijn Schrofer, The Netherlands, Documentary, 2023, 22’30’’

"Birth of Light" explores the clash between traditional nomadic life and the arrival of electricity and a 4G network in a remote desert community in Northern Kenya. As darkness fades away, the film raises questions about the consequences of modernization on their self-sufficient culture, highlighting themes of capitalism, globalization, and climate change.

BROKEN WINGS

Jorik Dozy e Sil Van Der Woerd, Indonisia, Singapore and United Arab Emirates, Documentary, Experimental, 2023, 6’

The untold story of bird poaching in Southeast Asia. Forests are emptied on a massive scale, threatening more than 1,500 bird species with extinction. Yet almost nobody knows about it. This documentary-music film captures the journey tropical birds make from forest to cage, revealing how caging wild birds has become a massive industry that silences forests worldwide.

CANCER ALLEY

Pamela Falkenberg e Jack Cochran, United States of America, Documentary, Experimental, 2023, 8’58’’

Our newest collaboration with renowned poet Lucy English combines footage shot on location In Cancer Alley with images of nature, especially cypress groves, which are as fragile and as threatened as the Cancer Alley communities. The visuals are accompanied by a poem about what it is like to live in the small towns near the Mississippi River, between East Baton Rouge and New Orleans, which are now dominated by more than 200 chemical plants and oil refineries, sometimes literally located in residents' back yards. The cypress trees can live for more than 1000 years, if they are not chopped down for cypress mulch or their habitat destroyed. Human lifespans are much shorter, but we may not survive as a species unless we stop living as if all that matters is today, and learn to think on the time scale of the trees.

DANS L’OMBRE DE LA CITÉ VERTE
In the Shadows of the Green City

Léo Aguiton, France, Drama, 2023, 11’53’’

Rémi, a 25-year-old engineer working in an urban planning office, discovers that a project for the 2024 Olympic Games will lead to an ecological disaster. With the help of a journalist, he tries to bring the issue to the attention of the general public, which means he’ll have to stand up to his friend Victor (25), who works for the company behind the project.

DEATH OF A MOUNTAIN

Nuno Escudeiro, Portugal and France, Docufiction, 2023, 37’

Death of a Mountain is a testament to the contemporary french-italian mountain border. Throughout the film, we borrow the eyes of amateur filmmakers that portrayed this mountain ever since the invention of short-format film; we lean on the words of a woman who tells us of her mountain, her connection to this territory from her birth to its disappearance; we see the territory change through the passing of the years. The woman dwells on memories of childhood to escape the present, a war that spreads on her mountain and on which she is forced to take part. She feels betrayed by the idea that mountains live forever.
Nonetheless, she fights. Where do mountains go if we allow them to die?

DES RIVES
Banks

David Sanchez, Canada, Documentary, 2023, 26’

Billie-Jazz is an eco-educator and mother of a 4-year-old girl who finds immense joy in sharing her enthusiasm for all the magic that secretly works within the Earth's biosphere. Recent discoveries related to the issues threatening the St. Lawrence River, a waterway to which she attaches an important bond, lead her to question our relationship with it. She therefore leaves Kamouraska where she lives to drive along the riverbanks from the Mingan islands to Montreal to meet the people who are taking concrete action to protect our greatest quebec jewel. Whether it's cleaning the waters of microplastics or taking an activist stance, Billie's quest plunges us into the urgency of saving our marine territory.

DÍAS DE LLUVIA
Days of Rain

Ainara Lungman, Argentina, Fiction, 2024, 15’

Roberto is doing construction fixings in his backyard when the concrete’s ground breaks and he suddenly falls down a hole. Consequently, his wife Graciela and his adult children Camila and Emanuel try to save him. During the course of the day, they can’t seem to get help due to a hydric meteorological crisis in the city, and the ceaseless rain aggravates the situation. Then is when they must decide how to act; therefore, they find a space of reflection that will lead them to confess their long time family issues.

ESCOPETA
Shotgun

Daniel Aarón Hernández Villarreal, Mexico, Fiction, 2023, 16’

Carlos, a shy boy that traveled with his mother to the town where his grandfather once lived, wants to befriend with three kids that reject him for being a stranger. Determined to fit into the group, he manages to grab his grandfather’s old shotgun and has to decide whether he’s capable of shooting an animal to earn the respect of the kids.

EUROPA
Europe

Ekain Irigoien, Spain, Fiction, Documentary, Animation, 2023, 8’

LUBNA (10) came to Paris fleeing the war. He addresses his parents with his thoughts, wishing that together they would cross the Mediterranean so that they could see whales flying over the Eiffel Tower.

FALLIN’

Carlos Navarro, Spain, Animation, 2024, 10’

Awakening in a season not its own, the Winter Spirit must learn to discover beauty in the unfamiliar, confronting personal biases and embracing the ever-changing cycle.

LOBOS
Wolves

Marina Garcia Andreu, Spain, Fiction, Documentary, 2023, 30’

Livestock breeders in a small village in Asturias take a stand against the recent ban on wolf hunting. A portrait of concern and fear of the wolf. A nocturnal howl that echoes in the valley.

MAGNIFICA: KUTSUMATON VIERAS
Magnifica: Passive Intruder

Ville Koskinen, Finland, Documentary, 2024, 20’

Magnifica: Passive Intruder is a documentary film about the coexistence of Finnish cottage-goers and an uninvited visitor called Pectinatella Magnifica - it’s something and there’s a lot of it. The arrival of green and slimy blobs among the safe and familiar environment brings uncomfortable feelings in the self-indulgent middle class community. Its jiggly movement alone disgusts them.
The film follows the cottagers' astonishment and attempts to annihilate the strange creature that has invaded their shores. But some have a less prejudiced approach to it than others.

METSÄN MÄÄRITELMÄ
Definition of forest

Kristiina Koskinen, Finland, Documentary, Experimental, 2024, 13’37’’

Definition of forest (2024) is an experimental short documentary film searching for a forest behind the concept. Its unruly voice overs lure the viewer to conflicting paths, never composing a single, compatible view or an entire forest.
The film dives into the shared living of humans and forests, and suggests peculiar questions without easy answers: What do we sense in a dark, shadowy forest and what kind of member of family can a forest be? How can the organic movement of a human dancer connect with a forest? And finally, is there any way to reach the nonhuman nature of a forest?
The documentariness of the film is fragmentary, relational, and probing towards the unknown. Instead of recording and representing reality, the film relies on its becoming: reality is what happens in the processes of filming and viewing.

NDOSSI

Kristina Obame, Gabon, Documentary, 2024, 9’37’’

"Ndossi" offers a captivating glimpse into the depths of the Gabonese rainforest, where ancient wisdom intertwines with the natural world. Through a compelling blend of folklore, personal testimony, music, and immersive sound, viewers are transported to a realm brimming with medicinal plants and enigmatic secrets.
Guided by the eyes of a young gorilla tracker, "Ndossi" unveils the timeless lessons passed down by the rainforest's animal inhabitants. As we journey alongside our protagonist, we discover the profound spiritual connection she shares with these majestic creatures, offering a unique perspective on the delicate balance of life in the jungle.
Amidst the dense foliage and hidden wonders of Gabon's rainforest, "Ndossi" invites audiences to immerse themselves in a world where tradition and nature intertwine. Through the lens of our protagonist's experiences, we gain insight into the intricate relationships that sustain this vibrant ecosystem, and the urgent need to preserve its invaluable legacy for future generations.

PRAH.
Dust

Kaja Rakušček, Slovenia, Documentary, 2023, 9’26’’

A factory, mysterious dust and the wind that carries it.

STRATA INCOGNITA

Romea Muryń, Francisco Lobo, Amaia Sánchez-Velasco e Jorge Valiente Oriol, Portugal and Spain, Documentary, Experimental, 2023, 16’

Soil is our closest alien world. STRATA INCOGNITA, is a trans-scalar and trans-temporal journey across the geographies that articulate soil as an agro-industrial infrastructure, but also as an ecosystem and a somatic archive of crimes, memories and myths.

SUMPAH SERAPAH SAMPAH
Waste Whispers

Achmad Rezi Fahlevie, Indonesia, Documentary, 2023, 17’4’’

“Waste Whispers” tells the story of a big trash disaster in Yogyakarta. When the Piyungan Waste Disposal Site closed for two months due to overloaded garbage, the city faced a messy situation. As waste collection services paused, trash started pilling up everywhere. People didn’t know what to do, so they ended up throwing trash on the streets, rivers, forest, and even the ocean. In the midst of this turmoil, air pollution spiked due to the practice of burning waste.

THE CLOSING OF A REFINERY

Vasco Monteiro, Portugal, Documentary, Experimental, 2023, 16’

A soul-searching conversation with ChatGPT about sustainability, the green energy transition, and the future of humankind, following the decommission of the largest oil refinery in Northern Portugal.

THE FIRST

Tiago Iúri, Portugal, Animation, 2024, 4’37’’

In a desolate world, a solitary survivor imprisoned in a silent house navigates the remnants of life amid the echoes of a destroyed Earth.

THE KEEP

Federico Conti, Italy, Documentary, 2024, 17’8’’

Sally Barnes is the last person in Ireland to smoke exclusively wild fish. Overwhelmed by the consequences of climate change and intensive fishing, her inestimable know-how is in danger of disappearing forever.

THE SOUL OF JASMINE

Marina Garcia Andreu, China and Spain, Documentary, 2023, 9’

Amidst the newly-built office towers in Fuzhou, China lies a parcel of wetland where delicate jasmine flowers grow in abundance. Here, farmers brave the hot weather to collect jasmine from verdant and fragrant fields. They talk about the ephemeral bloom of the flowers, because the perfect bloom occurs but once a year. This film offers a visual journey of the jasmine flower from field, to cultivation, and ultimately, to the porcelain cup of a tea master.

THE TRUE PRICE OF YOUR COUCH

Machteld Rijnten, Lithuania, Animation, 2023, 2’34’’

We follow the life journey of a couch, from the materials and manufacturing to the shipping and wasted demise. The animation illustrates the shocking cost of the fast furniture supply chain and calls for the industry to take more responsibility and for consumers to make better choices.

THE WAITING

Voker Schlecht, Germany, Animation, 2023, 15’

For two years Karen Lips lives alone in a cloud forest in Costa Rica to observe a rare species of frogs she had previously discovered. In Miami she plans to write her dissertation on them, but soon realized that she is still missing some data. But when she returned, the frogs had disappeared. All of them. She soon realizes that there are more cases around the world.
At the same time, on different continents dozens of amphibian species had already disappeared. Something is sweeping through the forests and streams that they cannot withstand. What is causing them to disappear? And where does it come from?

TO BIRD OR NOT TO BIRD

Martín Romero, Spain, Animation, 2023, 9’

To bird or not to bird, that is the question. A critical and kaleidoscopic view of the current world told through the tragicomic and grotesque experiences of some birds.

À PROCURA DA ESTRELA
A Shepherd’s Tale

Carlos Martínez-Peñalver Mas, Portugal, Documentary, 2023, 77’

Xoel, a landscape photographer, arrives at Serra da Estrela to record the sounds which are about to disappear from mainland Portugal’s highest peak. As the days go by he will find out that tourism has muted the signs of the past, thus making his search absurd. Until a mysterious melody lures him to the top of the mountain and gets him lost. Xoel’s journey will become a fragile analogy of the tale that gives its name to the region: The Legend of the Shepherd and the Star.

DE LONGE TODA SERRA É AZUL
From Afar Every Mountain Range is Blue

Neto Borges, Brazil, Documentary, 2023, 85’

An advocate of indigenous rights, Fernando Schiavini, returns to places and villages he visited in the 1970s when little was known about “Brazil’s deep interior”. This is the history of Brazilian indigenism narrated by somebody who experienced it first-hand and helped chronicle it using a language of solidarity.

LINDO

Margarida Gramaxo, Portugal, Documentary, 2023, 90′

For over 20 years, Lindo hunted turtles on the Island of Príncipe. After a meeting with an unexpectedly docile turtle, he decided to change his life and began protecting the animal against other predators. He now dives into his past seeking answers to the debate about the future of the island and how to strike the right balance between Humanity and Nature.

O MELHOR DOS MUNDOS

Rita Nunes, Portugal, Fiction, 2024, 74’

Marta and Miguel are part of a group of scientists and are a couple in their private life.
Their relationship is put to the test when data analysed by Marta points to a very high probability of a huge earthquake hitting Lisbon.
The scientists are divided in their debate about whether or not to alert the population to a possible imminent tragedy.

SEM CORAÇÃO
Heartless

Nara Normande e Tião, Brazil, France and Italy, Fiction, 2023, 93’

Summer 1996, north-east coast of Brazil. Tamara is enjoying her last weeks at the fishing village she lives in before departing to Brasilia for her studies. One day, she hears about a teenager nicknamed Heartless after a scar she has on her chest. Over the course of the summer, Tamara feels a growing attraction for this mysterious girl.

AMAR A ILHA
Love the Island

Isabela Alves, Brazil, Documentary, 2023, 5’

"My fate was for this and I have to continue until the end". For more than 30 years, fisherman João Alfredo da Silva, 63, has dedicated his life to collecting garbage from the Billings Reservoir, one of the most important water reservoirs in São Paulo. Tracing his work and personal life, the film explores the importance of preserving the environment in the peripheries and the complexities that surround the protagonist's life.

BIG BANG HENDA

Fernanda Polacow, Portugal and Angola, Documentary, 2023, 22’

Toppling statues and symbols, constructing new memories, redesigning the destroyed landscape, writing letters for the future, reversing the power dynamics: Big Bang Henda is a documentary-poetry-manifesto about the work of Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda. It takes us on a journey through his creations and reflections, which are at the forefront of anticolonial thinking, inviting us to ponder on how the generations who grew up during or in the aftermath of the war reinterpret this event.

CAMORIM

Renan Barbosa Brandão, Brazil, Documentary, 2023, 17’

Camorim is an urban quilombo located near the middle-high class neighbourhood of Barra da Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro. The film depicts 4 quilombolas revealing their desires, memories and important discoveries about where they live and their continuing resistance.

ERVILHA

Teresa Mendonça, Portugal, Documentary, 2023, 11’53’’

A portrait of the people who work the land in Ervilha, a private ground, left abandoned in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Porto: Foz do Douro.
Ervilha faces the same threat our world faces: to be destroyed in the name of progress. A new avenue is planned and will destroy the area that feeds many.
With a small step we leave the usual roaring traffic, and a different kind of noise is heard: birds, streams and people talking in distance. This place gives the elderly and the young a lease of life and generates the air we so dearly need.

LITORAL
Coast

Francisco Dias, Portugal, Fiction, 2023, 13’09”

One winter night, the sea threatens once again the tower block where two neighbours live.
The next day, their children come to prompt them to leave everything behind.

MESOKOSMOS
Mesocosms

Welket Bungué, Brazil, Experimental, 2023, 12’

A human body moves through nature. Body kinetics mixed with creative contemplation underlaid by narrative syncope of an ecology of relationships, existentialism and philosophical thought converted into filmic language. How can we find in the image, the codes that essentially aggregate the relationship between the human-animal-ontological, and nature-essence?

MOVIMENTOS MIGRATÓRIOS
Migratory Movements

Rogério Cathalá, Brazil, Fiction, 2024, 14’

Pedro Paniágua recently arrived in Brazil and faces a daily challenge for survival. He plans to bring his family when he has settled into his new country. When a swallow gets injured and falls on his home, he splits his time between looking for work and trying to save the bird. Wherever he goes, he encounters difficulties that make him reflect on his condition as an immigrant, but he continues to strive to save the bird which becomes a transformative mission.

NOCTURNO PARA UMA FLORESTA

Catarina Vasconcelos, Portugal, Fiction, Experimental, 2023, 16’

In the 15th century, in Portugal, a group of monks built a wall around a forest and prevented the entry of women. But the hands of the living cannot control everything: in the invisible world, where night reigns and only souls light up the forest, women have built their kingdom of invisibility, without walls.

NOSSO PANFLETO SERIA ASSIM
Our Flyer Would Look Like This

Leandro Olimpio, Brazil, Documentary, 2024, 25’

Me, my unionist friend, Petrobras and Brazil.

O AFINADOR DE SILÊNCIOS
The Tuner of Silences

Mário Patrocínio, Portugal, Fiction, 2023, 21’

Mwanito’s been living in a big-game park for eight years. The only people he knows are his father, his brother, an uncle, and a servant. He’s been told that the rest of the world is dead, that all roads are sad, that they wait for an apology from God.

O JARDIM EM MOVIMENTO
The Moving Garden

Inês Lima, Portugal, Fiction, Experimental, 2024, 19’

Accompanied by two botanical guides, a group of hikers embark on a journey through the stunning landscape of the Arrábida Nature Park. As they explore the different species of this ecosystem, they notice a troubling transformation in the location, not caused by the natural passage of time, but orchestrated by the appropriation of human presence.

ONDE SE PLANTA UM LAR
Where a Home Takes Root

Carolina Pinto, Portugal, Documentary, 2024, 15’39’’

In search of a life in close contact with nature, a young couple, Martim and Annika, decided to build their own house. On their constantly changing plot of land there is always work to do. We follow the construction of a creative studio and the upkeep of a vegetable garden. At night they socialise with local friends. To the sound of the birds, Martim and Annika attempt to live a simple life in harmony with the surrounding environment.

PÁSSARO MEMÓRIA
A Bird Called Memory

Leonardo Martinelli, Brazil and United Kingdom, Fiction, 2023, 15’

A bird called Memory has forgotten how to come back home. Lua, a trans woman, tries to find Memory in the streets, but the city can be a hostile place.

PERCEBES

Alexandra Ramires e Laura Gonçalves, Portugal and France, Animation, 2024, 11’30’’

With the sea and the urban Algarve as a background, we follow a complete cycle of the life of a special shellfish called PERCEBES, goose barnacle. From their formation, to the dish, in this journey, we cross different contexts that allow us to better understand this region and those who live there.

This film is also competing in the International Short and Medium-Length Film Competition

QUANDO A TERRA FOGE
When the land runs away

Frederico Lobo, Portugal and Spain, Documentary, 2024, 29’

Amid the fog and the labyrinth of time, while machines probe the geological depths of the mountain, a shepherd searches for an errant cow. Childhood finds its way back, the mountain transforms itself, the cycle continues.

RINHA
Combat

Rita M. Pestana, Brazil and Portugal, Fiction, 2023, 22’34’’

Cássia lives with her alcoholic father and his roosters. Her routine obeys to a disciplined logic of worry and melancholy. Between driving her father's taxi in the streets of Belo Horizonte and tending their rooster for the cockfights in the backyards of the city, Cássia is on the verge of breaking to find a life of her own without the responsibilities imposed on her which make her feel like she doesn't know whom she is. But to move on she will have to lose the only family she's ever had.

VEGETALIDADE
Vegetality

Frederico C. Ferreira, Portugal, Fiction, Drama, 2023, 16’52”

A day in the life of three rural homeless men, a poetic dystopia about the balance between Humanity, Nature and The Creator.

5861

Ivo Abalroado, Portugal, Documentary, 2023, 17’29”

5861 emerge como uma obra documental de curta-metragem, onde a imponente beleza natural da serra da Estrela serve de cenário para revelar fragmentos da vida de Henrique Rebelo, um antigo condutor combatente da Guerra Colonial Portuguesa.

A DANÇA DOS MOSQUITOS
The Dance of the Mosquitoes

João Ferreira, Portugal, Experimental, 2023, 14'05"

Between the past and the present, an omniscient narrator travels through places, objects and peoples, all the while arousing disturbing memories through ghostly machinations.
Sprouting from the collection and interpretation of life stories lived out in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela, “A Dança dos Mosquitos” is a cinematographic work that intends to provide a stage for a collective memory that survives under the threat of an erosive solitude.

ARTS 4 PEOPLE AND EARTH

António Lopes, João Dias, Maria Barroco, Leonor Barroco, Nuno Vicente e Pushkhy, Portugal, Experimental, 2023, 57’

As part of the “ARTS 4 People and Earth” project, five films have been produced that delve into the relationship that humans and society forge with the environment and nature and with the climate emergency, from different perspectives. Each film has its own story and narrative, but they all share a common thread: the Serra da Gardunha. Through these films, the project aims to increase awareness about the environmental challenges, arouse reflection and inspire the viewers to take action to conserve our natural world.

THE BIO ESTRELA PROJECT

Oliver Couch, Portugal, Documentary, 2023, 8'58"

Wildfires are threatening to destroy Portugal's last remaining wilderness, the Estrella mountain range. If the wildfires can't be stopped, Portugal will lose more than the trees that burn. They will lose the generations of history and tradition kept alive through the farming communities and villages that live and rely on these forests. Already the young people of the area have begun to leave saying there is no future here. This film follows the scientists, farmers and individuals fighting to create a landmark project to halt the spreading wildfires and to save the Estrella from burning.