Organisers of the 23rd Doclisboa have revealed this year’s opening and closing films, as well as a selection of highlights from the program. The festival runs October 16 to 26.
The Portuguese docfest will open October 16 with the documentary With Hasan in Gaza by Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari, described as “an urgent tribute to the resistance in Gaza.” Edited from footage shot in 2001, when the filmmaker and Hasan Elboubou were searching for Abdel Rahim, with whom Kamal was imprisoned in Gaza in 1989 as a teenager, With Hasan in Gaza is a road movie “that transports us to a territory in resistance, marked by the coexistence between the ordinary lives of its inhabitants and the permanent violence of the occupation,” writes the festival.
To conclude, Doclisboa presents The Tree of Knowledge, by Eugène Green. Since his The Portuguese Nun (2009), Green has devoted particular interest to Portugal, which continued in How Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal (2018) and Lisbon Revisited (2019). The filmmaker now returns to the Portuguese capital with “a fable about a teenager, an ogre, and a dark pact, in a not-always-veiled critique of how the city has surrendered to tourism,” the festival writes. The film is a Portuguese-French co-production between O Som e a Fúria and Le Plein de Super, starring Diogo Dória, Leonor Silveira, João Arrais, Ana Moreira, and Rui Pedro Silva.
The festival’s non-competitive From the Earth to the Moon section comprises a selection of works that allow us to see the worlds of yesterday, today, and tomorrow through stories from multiple places and times. The section includes I Only Rest in the Storm – versão integral, by Pedro Pinho, the long version and world premiere of the film awarded at Cannes (Best Actress in the Un Certain Regard section for Cleo Diára).
From the Earth to the Moon will also feature Remake, by Ross McElwee, who returns to cinema after a 14-year absence, in a film that is both a reflection on his previous work and a moving tribute to the life of his son Adrian, a recurring figure in his work, who passed away in 2016. In 2005, Doclisboa presented the most complete retrospective of the American director’s films ever held in Europe and published a brochure with critical texts on his work. The film recently won the Golden Globes Impact Prize for Doc at Venice FF.
Also in From Earth to the Moon section is Bulakna,by Leonor Noivo, which arrives at Doclisboa after winning the Renaud Victor Award at FIDMarseille 2025. “The film addresses fundamental issues of our time: profound social inequality in a post-colonial world, while touching on the most intimate depths of human beings—the value of work, the body, and life,” the festival writes.
In the Heartbeat section, Memoirs of Teatro da Cornucópia, by Solveig Nordlund showcases emblematic plays performed within the theatre company founded by Luis Miguel Cintra and Jorge Silva Melo in 1973. In the same section, Bull’s Heart by Greek director Eva Stefani, closely follows the preparations for choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou’s creation Transverse Orientation and its tour of European theatres.
The complete programme for the 23rd Doclisboa will be announced September 25.
