Doclisboa 25

End of the Present by Andrea Bussmann, and Hôtel Homère by Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour and Ryan Ferko, have been selected for Jordà Residencies following the 2026 call for proposals. Both projects are “intertwined in their focus on memory and technological mediation,” the festival underlines. Organised by Museo Reina Sofía, Doclisboa and FIDMarseille, the residency is structured across three phases - in Madrid, Marseille and Lisbon.

Films on Madonna, David Lynch, Boy George, Jeff Buckley are selected for the Heart Beat section, whose selections span “multiple art forms and expressions, celebrating the creative act,” write organisers. From the Earth to the Moon section features three heavyweights of world cinema — Werner Herzog with Ghost Elephants, Lucrecia Martel with Landmarks, and Laura Poitras, co-director of Cover-Up. The 22nd edition of Doclisboa runs 16 - 26 October.

In an abandoned building in Lisbon, young people build a community, where art, affection, and resistance intertwine in a collective struggle for the right to housing. Meanwhile, like a Greek chorus, the choir of the Kantata of the Uncertain Roof sing songs of protest against housing injustice. “I’ve followed movements claiming the right to space in contexts from Mexico and Costa Rica to Rome and Lisbon,” says director Claudio Carbone. “In each project, I try to reflect on the everyday lives and collective desires of communities that resist displacement and alienation.”

The International Competition brings together 12 films, including seven world premieres, three international premieres, one European premiere, and three debut works. The Portuguese Competition will feature 12 titles, including seven world premieres, one European premiere, and four national premieres. In total, the festival will present 211 films from 54 countries, including 93 feature films and 118 short films. Doclisboa 2025 will take place from October 16 to 26.

The Best International Competition Film was awarded to The Night Is Fading Away by Ezequiel Salinas and Ramiro Sonzini (Argentina). The International Competition Jury Award went to Tell Me a Fairy Tale by Ebrû Avci (Turkey), while the Jury Award for Best International Competition Director was won by Fantasy by Isabel Pagliai (France). The Doclisboa Award for Best Portuguese Competition Film was picked by Água Mãe, by Hiroatsu Suzuki and Rossana Torres.

“We need to care for the people that bring the films here, and we need to care for the people that come to watch the films - it's like a mantra,” director Helder Beja tells BDE on the eve of Doclisboa 2025. The Portuguese docfest (Oct 16 to 26) presents 211 films from 54 countries, which include 93 feature films and 118 shorts. Thirty-nine of the films play as world premieres, while 31 films are made by Portuguese filmmakers. The 23rd edition of Doclisboa opens October 16 with Palestinian Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza.

“The Industry section at Doclisboa is a space for fostering both creative and production-based collaborations. It is also a space for the kind of cinema that the festival believes in — one that values artistic integrity, reflection, and community,” Marina Thomé, the festival’s Director of Industry and Development, underlines to Business Doc Europe as doors opened on the 2025 edition of the Portuguese docfest.

This elegiac ode to a crumbling cinema in Amman intertwines the messy reality of making a documentary [which entails the filmmaker constantly steering his protagonists from behind the camera] with archival news footage on Palestine-Israel. Both meta levels reflect on this beautiful portrayal of the cinema’s last two elderly employees, who struggle daily to keep their doomed movie theatre afloat. Thus say I, a critic and lover of cinema…and of this film.

Victoria Hely-Hutchinson’s deliciously paced Vacances is neither a reductive portrait of an old eccentric nor a sensationalist dissection of a dysfunctional family. Although either could probably have been edited from her material. Instead, we mostly find ourselves lounging languidly around a sunny villa in Provence, as the uninhibited, at times inexcusably rude, Granny dominates the proceedings. But at some point, something’s gotta give…

Representatives of Film Fund Luxembourg, Flanders Image, SEE NL and Wallonie Bruxelles Images are in Lisbon to attend Nebulae, the Doclisboa Industry Space, in order to boost collaboration with the Portuguese and wider doc industries. The program sees the presentation of 11 projects in development and works-in-progress from the Benelux, a Jumpgate session designed to foster wider cross-border collaboration, and two core Industry round tables.