Portuguese Language Film Festival kicks off in Timişoara next week

The first edition of the Portuguese Language Film Festival, an event gathering films from the Portuguese-speaking world, takes place between May 8 and May 11 at Cinema Studio in Timişoara.

The festival highlights "the diversity and universality of the Portuguese language, one of the most spoken languages ​​in the world, on four continents."

Through its selection of films, it explores the common cultural identity and the local nuances of the Portuguese language, as it is spoken and experienced in Angola, Brazil, Mozambique, and Portugal.

"With the nine screenings, the Romanian audience will have the opportunity to get acquainted with a wide variety of film genres from the four cardinal points of the Lusophony. We want to use this opportunity to present various film genres, from drama to comedy, from documentaries to short films, dedicating two sessions to this purpose, one of which is designed for children and young people. Here, seven animated short films will be presented," Ana Rita Sousa, the director of the Bucharest Camões Institute, explained.

"Classic films from Portuguese-language cinema will be presented, more recent films by award-winning female directors, a documentary that invites us to get to know the marginal areas of the language, such as the writings of women from different regions, and another one that, through fiction, allows us to discover four Brazilian women authors."

Margarida Rendeiro, one of the producers of the film Keepers of Stories, Keepers of the Word, directed by Raquel Freire/WomenLit, will be present at the event. The film brings together the stories of female writers from different generations and cultural contexts in Portuguese-speaking countries.

The films are screened with Romanian and English subtitles. More on the program here.