Politics Festival 2024: Starts today with the theme of citizen intervention and participation, on the 50th anniversary of April

Last updated:March 26, 2024

O Politics Festival returns this Wednesday (April 3) to Cinema São Jorge with citizen intervention and participation as its central theme “in institutions, in electoral acts and in their communities”, in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April Revolution.

The Politics 2024 Festival program combines cinema, performances, music, humor, exhibitions and conversations, with free entry. It will also take place in Braga, from the 2nd to the 4th of May, at the Youth Center, and editions are confirmed in Loulé (October ) and in Coimbra (November).

Under the motto “the time to intervene is now or now”the cinema section “which is the result of an international call, this year it has a selection of 11 productions, including short and feature films, animation films, fiction and documentaries. Every year, the Politics Festival awards the Jury Prize – Film of the Year, Audience Prize and Future Prize, for the best production by under-30 directors.”according to the festival’s statement.

Of the eleven films, eight are short films and three are feature films: “Sappers of Humanity” in The Gandaya Collectivea documentary that tells “the winding life story of António José Botelho de Vasconcelos, born in colonial Angola, into a Portuguese family, in 1969”; “The staff room” in lker Çatakone of the hottest films of 2023, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, nominated for the Oscar for best international film and one of the finalists for the Lux Awards; “The color of freedom”by Julio Pereira, a documentary “which starts from the story of José Pedro Soares, a former political prisoner who was detained and tortured by PIDE between 1971 and 1974, and contextualizes Portugal and its social reality at the time”.

Also noteworthy is the audiovisual project “Make You Hear”, on April 4th, which “proposes to dismantle prejudices and stereotypes associated with the gypsy community in Portugal”, followed by a debate entitled “Integration of the Gypsy Community”. On April 5th, the last day of the festival, at 9:30 pm, there is a comedy show with Hugo Van Der Ding“What matters is participating.”

The Politics Festival also has four exhibitions taking place simultaneously, on inclusion, diversity and democracy: “LGBT+ History in Portugal”, “After all, how many people abstain in Portugal?”, “Affective polarization: causes and implications for the democratic system” and “WomenPPT”.

Cinema program

3 April
6pm – Cinema
Room 3
“Sapadores da Humanidade”, by The Gandaya Collective, 69′ (Portugal)

7:15 pm – Cinema: European Parliament Session
Manoel de Oliveira Room
“The teachers’ room” by lker Çatak, 98′ (Germany)

April 4
Cinema and conversation
Room 3
“The color of freedom”, by Julio Pereira, 69′ (Portugal)

April 5
5:30 pm – cinema
Room 3
Political Bodies Session
“Filhas da Pátria”, by Catarina Almeida, 12′ (Portugal)
“Monte Clérigo”, by Luís Campos, 28′ (Portugal)
“Please make it work”, by Daniel Soares, 14′ (Portugal and Switzerland)
“Mistida”, by Wilker Nhaga, 30′ (Portugal)

11:15 pm – cinema
Room 3
Over 18 Session
“Will you come with me?”, by Derya Durmaz, 2′ (Germany)
“Fragments”, by Marie-Lou Béland, 9′ (Canada)
“Nadie falls in love in a porno cine”, by Varinia Perusin, 9′ (Argentina)
“Maghreb’s hope”, by Bassem Ben Brahim, 24′ (Algeria, Brazil, Morocco and Tunisia)

Full program here