How it began
The festival began with a simple frustration. There was nowhere in Berlin to watch Portuguese films, and visiting Portugal only ever caught whatever happened to be showing that week. For its founder, Helena Araújo, the logical solution was to bring the films here instead — mobilising her own network of contacts and, together with a growing circle of partners, creating this showcase. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, the mountain comes to Berlin.
Since 2018, every November, we have screened recent Portuguese cinema at the Moviemento in Kreuzberg — one of the oldest independent cinemas in Europe. Award-winning features, documentaries and short films, in their original versions with English subtitles.
But the films are only half of it: the directors who join us, the conversations after the lights come up, a glass of Port wine, the occasional pastel de nata. It is, in the most affectionate sense, an informal embassy of Portuguese culture in Berlin.
The people behind it
Portuguese Cinema Days is the work of a small, dedicated team gathered around its founder, Helena Araújo, together with a growing circle of partners, curators and friends. Year after year, it is their volunteered time — the programming, the subtitles, the welcome at the door — that turns a room full of chairs into a festival.
Doors open, the room fills, and the lights go down. Over the years the festival has brought together Berliners, the city's Portuguese-speaking community and curious newcomers — an audience as much there for the encounter as for the films themselves.
Screenings run in the Moviemento's intimate auditorium, its rows filling as the projector warms up. And when the film ends, the lights rarely send everyone home: more often the director walks to the front, a microphone is passed around, and the evening turns into a conversation.
The evening rarely ends with the credits
Some of the best moments happen once the credits have rolled. Directors, actors and crew step up to the front of the room and take questions from the audience — about a shot, a decision, a memory — often long past the hour the projectionist had in mind.
Each edition brings filmmakers to Berlin, many showing their work to a German audience for the first time. Standing in front of the Moviemento screen, they introduce films that have travelled with them from festivals across Portugal and the wider Portuguese-speaking world.
A microphone, a follow-up, a burst of laughter — the exchange between the room and the people who made the film is where the festival comes alive. Rigorous in its curation and warm in its welcome, it is unmistakably Portuguese in both.
For many who come, the encounter matters as much as the film: a chance to meet the person who made it, to hear the story behind the story, and to carry a little of Portuguese cinema back out into the Berlin night.
When the lights come up, the festival spills over to the bar. A glass of Port is poured, a tray of pastéis de nata comes round, and a toast goes up under the string lights — the credits are just the cue for the second half of the night.
Behind the counter there is always Port and something sweet from a Portuguese bakery. It is a small thing, but it is the one that turns a screening into an evening — and the bar into the warm, informal heart of the festival.
Filmmakers, regulars and first-time visitors end up around the same tables, glass in hand. Year after year, it is these conversations — as much as the films — that keep people coming back each November.
By the end of the night the bar feels less like a cinema foyer and more like a living room far from home — a corner of Berlin where Portuguese cinema, language and company come together, and where everyone is welcome to linger.