Press & Media

About the festival

Portuguese Cinema Days is an annual festival in Berlin dedicated to recent Portuguese cinema. Since 2018, every November, it has screened award-winning features, documentaries and short films, in their original versions with English subtitles, at the Moviemento in Kreuzberg, one of the oldest independent cinemas in Europe. Many screenings are followed by conversations with the filmmakers.

The festival began with a simple frustration: there was nowhere in Berlin to watch Portuguese films. Its founder, Helena Araújo, set out to bring the films here instead, mobilising her own network of contacts and, together with a growing circle of partners, turning a room full of chairs into a festival. In the most affectionate sense, it is an informal embassy of Portuguese culture in Berlin.

The Moviemento has been the festival's home since 2019, but it has never been the only door. The very first edition, in 2018, took place at the Hackesche Höfe Kino, and in 2023 a special session for European Arthouse Cinema Day was held at filmkunst66. These were occasional exceptions rather than the rule, a reminder that, when a programme calls for it, the festival will happily go elsewhere.

The festival in numbers

• 7editions
• 107+films screened
• 4,000+visitors
• 30+guests & filmmakers

Photos from past editions

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