23/10/2025 - The festival’s 12th edition will showcase the latest works by André Guiomar, Iván Castiñeiras, Igor Bezinović and Leonor Noivo, amongst many others

The central theme of this year’s Porto/Post/Doc is “The Time of a Journey”. Indeed, its cinematic journey in 2025 unspools from 20-29 November across several locations in Porto. Kicking off with Carla Simón’s Romería [+see also:
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interview: Carla Simón
film profile] as its opening film and closing with Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother [+see also:
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interview: Jim Jarmusch
film profile], respectively Cannes and Venice competition entries, the festival will present a total of 135 movies this year.

The International Competition includes eight features: Rule of Stone [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Canada/Israel) by Danae Elon, Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o morte! [+see also:
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film profile] (Croatia/Italy/Slovenia), Evidence (USA) by Lee Anne Schmitt, Militantropos [+see also:
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interview: Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gor…
film profile] (Ukraine/Austria/France) by Alina Gorlova, Yelizaveta Smith and Simon Mozgovyi, Copper (Mexico/Canada) by Nicolás Pereda, Only on Earth [+see also:
interview: Robin Petré
interview: Robin Petré
film profile] (Denmark/Spain) by Robin Petré, Nastia Korkia’s Short Summer [+see also:
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interview: Nastia Korkia
film profile] (Germany/France/Serbia) and Monica Strømdahl’s Flophouse America [+see also:
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interview: Monica Strømdahl
film profile] (Norway/Netherlands/USA). This year, the festival introduces a new competitive section: the International Medium-length and Short Film Competition, boasting 22 films.

Cinema Falado, the competitive section for Portuguese-language works, returns, presenting six features and five shorts, from multiple origins. Cartography of the Waves (Brazil) by Heloisa Machado Nascimento, Gods of Stone (Spain/France/Portugal) by Iván Castiñeiras, Infinite Infinite, on the Imagination of Matter (Portugal) by Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela, André Guiomar’s Ku Handza (Portugal/Mozambique), Sechiisland: Art as a Way of Life (Brazil) by Cláudia Do Canto and João Paulo Miranda Maria, and Sérgio Oksman’s A Scary Movie [+see also:
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film profile] (Spain/Portugal) are the selected features. Also part of the gathering’s competitive sections are Cinema Novo (with 11 shorts directed by young, emerging filmmakers and students) and Transmission (a section dedicated to music, with Becoming Madonna as the opening film, A Century in Sound as a Special Screening and eight documentaries unspooling in competition).

In its non-competitive sections, and in connection with its central theme, the festival presents a programme under the same title, showcasing works from Hassen Ferhani, Hassan Fazili, Maciej Drygas, Werner Herzog, Şerif Gören and Yılmaz Güney. Meanwhile, Andrei Ujică and Lina Soualem are in focus this year: the festival presents several movies directed by these filmmakers, and they also get a carte blanche each.

Since 2021, the festival has hosted the Working Class Heroes initiative: this year’s invited filmmakers are Elena López Riera, Pedro Neves and Vlad Petri. In this programme, the auteurs present projects (connected with the people and the city of Porto) to an international jury, with one being selected for development and production over the course of two years, before having its world premiere at Porto/Post/Doc. The audience will also get a chance to see some of each filmmaker’s previous works, included in the festival’s general programme. As part of this year’s Special Screenings, the event presents the pre-world premiere of Tomás Baltazar’s short film Cabo do Mundo, winner of Working Class Heroes 2023. Seven films make up the Special Screenings selection, including Leonor Noivo’s Bulakna [+see also:
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film profile] by Rodrigo Areias and Aaron Brooker.

Finally, six projects will be presented in the festival’s Industry Screenings, a space that showcases both Portuguese and Galician films currently in post-production. Besides this, Arché Porto’s Writing and Development Lab returns, with five selected projects included in this platform intended for the conceptual development of projects in progress.