20/01/2026 - The new film by Ivo M Ferreira is a political thriller set in the turbulent years after Portugal's Carnation Revolution

Lisbon, 1980s: the Carnation Revolution and the euphoria of freedom belong to the past. The country faces turbulent times: factories close, workers raise barricades, and politics dominates every street corner. Amid cigarette smoke, music, prostitutes and sailors, people share shattered dreams and uncertain hopes. As social tensions deepen, the far-left armed group FP25 emerges. Its members follow a path of no return, living underground lives built on bank robberies, attacks, friendship, family and love — all under the perpetual threat of prison or death. As they abandon everything and everyone except each other, they begin to lose their own identities, while an officer fighting against them faces a moral dilemma of his own.

Projecto Global is the new film by Portuguese director Ivo M Ferreira, the world premiere of which is taking place in the Big Screen Competition at the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam (6-16 August).

Ivo M Ferreira says, "As a child, I practically lived at the Comuna Theater, where my parents were actors. One day in 1984, a car arrived and two men who clearly did not belong to that world stepped out. They approached my aunt, and before they even spoke, she said to the police officers: “I’ve had my bag packed in the boot of the car for six months. There’s no need to go by my house.” They took her away under arrest, and I only saw her again in prison. My parents explained that other people we knew might also be detained. “Don’t worry,” they said; “we have no connection to the organisation, and we don’t support it. In a democracy, if you want power, you go to elections, like all the bastards.” My aunt’s car stayed there, abandoned, parked outside the theatre, slowly rusting away." He adds, "With Projecto Global, I aim for a type of cinema that fights to maintain an inner vitality, a cinema of impulse, failure and rupture. That is precisely what I worked on with the actors: error as method, hesitation as truth. This is not a film that simplifies, because it could not be - or we did not want it to be - didactic."

Ferreira's breakthrough, April Showers (2009), premiered in the Bright Future section of IFFR, and his biggest title to date is Letters from War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile] (2016), which competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. His previous film, Empire Hotel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile], portraying the consequences of Portuguese colonialism, premiered at Pingyao and Sao Paulo.

Written by Ferreira and Hélder Beja, the film stars Jani Zhao, Rodrigo Tomás and José Pimentão. The film was produced by Luís Urbano and Sandro Aguilar for O Som e a Fúria and by Donato Rotunno for Tarantula Luxembourg. International sales are being handled by Germany's The Match Factory.

Check out our exclusive poster below: