With a budget of around 180,000 euros, the 21st edition of the district of Aveiro and Porto Metropolitan Area festival runs until June 29, extending from eight to nine days this year. This extension allows the festival director to “ease the program’s intensity” and respond to the frequent request for “more films for children and young people,” which accounts for about 20% of an audience totaling around 15,000 spectators in 2024.
“Last year, there were already many films with AI, but this year there’s a significant leap in that realm, including the soundtracks, and we have a specific section solely for works with this technology,” stated the FEST director, Fernando Vasquez. “AI is having a substantial impact on film production and is advancing at such a rapid pace that the differences are stark,” he highlighted.
In the competitive section, which in 2025 features 10 feature films, the FEST director highlights ‘Manas’ by Marianna Brennaud, described as “the great Brazilian film of the moment,” analyzing a teenager’s sexual awakening within a restrictive Amazonian community. Also highlighted is ‘Mad bills to pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)’ by Joel Alfonso Vargas, depicting how an unplanned pregnancy affects a Dominican family living in the United States. “It’s one of the great American films of 2025 and is destined for the Oscars,” Vasquez assures.
Following is ‘Peacock’ by Austrian Bernhard Wenger, who “won the BEST short fiction in 2018 and was a major winner at the 2024 Venice Festival.” The work is a satirical comedy about Germanic rigidity, addressing the existential crisis of a man who “can be hired to play the role of a well-cultured boyfriend, educated son, or any other figure, but doesn’t know who he really is.”
On current international politics, the festival director highlighted two films: ‘Lesson Learned’ by Hungarian Bálint Szimler, exploring the atmosphere of a high school and reflecting on the educational system after 15 years of Viktor Orban’s government, and ‘Happy Holidays,’ where Palestinian director Scandar Copti shows the difficulties families of similar origin face while residing in Israel, subjected to general discrimination and a “specific legal regime.”
With a similar intent of social reflection, but in a documentary style, Vasquez also points to ‘To close your eyes and see fire,’ the first feature by Austrians Nicola von Leffern and Jacob Carl Sauer, exposing Beirut’s collective trauma after the 2020 port explosions, opening “all of Lebanon’s and the Middle East’s wounds.”
Featuring about 200 national premiere works and a panorama of Georgian production, which is “in vogue and becoming a world cinema power” thanks to a generation of particularly talented new filmmakers, the FEST 2025 lineup also includes a training program by national and international professionals, pitching sessions with audiovisual professionals, and parallel activities like concerts, parties, and exhibitions at the 8th International Art Biennial of Espinho.
However, the festival’s management notes that accommodation and housing constraints in Espinho lead many speakers and participants in its intensive training program to settle in other municipalities in the region, causing challenges for the festival team itself.
“We have difficulty negotiating with the technicians we wanted to have at the festival because, as the event lasts nine days and involves very long working days, professionals living far away must stay close, and the accommodation cost is so high that it prevents us from hiring them,” Fernando Vasquez lamented.
Given that the problem affects most major national urban centers, it’s unsurprising that housing is “the clearly dominant theme” in the competitive section dedicated exclusively to Portuguese cinema this year, contested by 23 films.
Two examples are the short film “Agente imobiliário sem casa para viver,” where Filipe Amorim, in a ‘mockumentary’ style, portrays the life of a professional unable to afford his rent and trying to sell houses to sleep in, and “C’est pas la vie en rose,” the “bold and unusual” debut feature by Leonor Bettencourt Loureiro, which tells how a French band living in Lisbon explores local culture and contributes to the capital’s gentrification.
Other films in the Portuguese competition include “First Date,” a romantic comedy and the first film by TV presenter Luís Filipe Borges, “premiering at FEST,” and “Arriba Beach,” where Indian director Nishchaya Gera, residing in Portugal, signs what Vasquez considers “the first national erotic thriller with an LGBT connotation.”
“The influence of foreign professionals living in Portugal is bringing many good things to our cinema,” assures the FEST director. “In previous years, this was mainly noticeable with Brazilian influence, and now it’s evident with professionals from other parts of the world, contributing to more variety of styles and formats in Portuguese cinema,” he concludes.
