CineEco has 81 films in competition and several national premieres

CineEco returns in October with 81 films in competition, several national premieres and new perspectives on environmental issues.

From October 10th to 18th, Seia will once again be the center of global environmental cinema. The Official Selection of films competing in the 31st edition of CineEco features 81 international and Portuguese-language feature, medium-length, and short films, shot in 31 countries, featuring diverse perspectives, with the environment as its cross-cutting theme.

In the International Feature Film Selection, we highlight a set of ten works making their world premiere in Portugal where the human factor is always decisive in the investigation, observation or experience of a dimension of the climate crisis: WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, by Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos, Jon Shenk, USA ; BLACK SNOW, by Alina Simone, USA; CLIMATE IN THERAPY, by Nathan Grossman, Olof Berglind, Malin Olofsson, Sweden; A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS, by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Norway; PET FARM, by Finn Walther, Martin A. Walther, Norway; MILCH INS FEUER (Smell of Burnt Milk), by Justine Bauer, Germany; THE TOWN THAT DROVE AWAY, by Grzegorz Piekarski, Natalia Pietsch, Poland; KATWE, Nima Shirali, Uganda/Sweden; XUE SHUI XIAO RONG DE JI JIE (After the Snowmelt), by Yi-Shan Lo, Taiwan/Japan; and ANGELO IN THE MAGIC FOREST, by Alexis Ducord, Vincent Paronnaud, France/Luxembourg.

In the Portuguese-Language Feature Film Selection, the national premiere of the Brazilian documentary TREASURE NATTERER, by Renato Barbieri, stands out. A big winner at the 2024 edition of It's All True, Latin America's leading documentary festival, the film chronicles the unknown adventure of an Austrian indigenous explorer through the Amazon in the 19th century.

The official CineEco 2025 selection also includes the Short and Medium-Length Film Competition, both international and Portuguese-language. Among the international films, the highlight is the short documentary "A QUI LE MONDE" (Blooming), by Marina Russo Villani and Victor Missud, from France, which premiered at the Rencontres Internacionales in Paris and Berlin and won this year's Green Festival Award.

No less important is the Regional Panorama Competitive Section, dedicated to films with narratives centered on the territory and the Serra da Estrela and which, this year, includes the participation of THE LAST SHEPHERD OF ELDER, by Laurène da Palma Cavaco, THE FIRE, by Joana Cabete, WE ARE TWO ABYSSES (We are two Abysses), by Kopal Joshy, CARVED IN STONE, by Tiago Cerveira, MONTAÑA ABAIXO (Down the Mountain), by Carlos Martínez-Peñalver Mas, and BEHAVE WELL, by Joana Alves.

This year, CineEco includes for the first time a new category in the competition for Fiction, Non-Fiction and Animation Short Films, in which 13 films from 12 countries compete.