Return to the Big Screen

The 2021 edition was, more than anything, a homecoming. After a period when screens went dark, fifteen films brought audiences back to the Moviemento and to the shared experience of watching Portuguese cinema together in a darkened room. Opening night set the tone with a small concert, the whole room singing along to António Variações.

The edition also made room for memory. A tribute to the actress Fernanda Lapa brought the short film Natureza Morta to the screen, presented in person by its director, Nuno Fraga Brás. The actress's daughter, Ana Lapa, was there too.

Catarina Vasconcelos' luminous The Metamorphosis of Birds, a personal essay woven from family letters and photographs, and João Maia's biopic Variações, on the beloved singer António Variações, drew some of the largest crowds. Between them, the programme ranged from João Nicolau's musical comedy Technoboss to João Nuno Pinto's colonial-war odyssey Mosquito, which he came to present in person alongside the film's lead actor, Sebastian Jehkul.

The programme reached beyond the cinema, too. Two extra sessions gathered around Pedro Palma's film on the enslaved man who sailed with Fernão de Magalhães on the first voyage around the world: a screening of the film, and a companion session at the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut with the historian Paulo Pinto. Pedro Palma was also present for both sessions.