Past Editions

The festival ran from 12 to 15 December and featured a number of themed sessions on subjects such as Odes to Friends, Borders, and The Unsaid — drawing tears both from their plainly unhappy endings and from the gripping conversations with the filmmakers.

Triste Para Sempre hosted 40 films, with these winners standing out across the different categories: International Teardrop, “The Insides of our Lives” by Misja Pekel; National Teardrop, “Era Uma Vez no Apocalipse” by Tiago Pimentel; and Audience Teardrop, “As Cores do Luto” by Mariana Lima Mateus. Among the selection of award-winners, 22 Portuguese productions and 18 films from ten different countries were screened.

For the International Competition, the jury panel featured Sara David Lopes — co-founder and co-director of Olhares do Mediterrâneo – Women’s Film Festival, where she leads direction, programming and subtitling coordination; Nuno Beato, animation filmmaker, CEO and producer at Sardinha em Lata, whose work includes the series “Ema & Gui” and the award-winning “Mi Vida en Tus Manos”; and Helen Esther Aschauer, Cuban-Austrian filmmaker and choreographer known for her bold visual storytelling, having collaborated with brands such as Qatar Airways, Vinted and Citroën.

For the National Competition, the festival welcomed Ana Alice Alves, architect and secondary-school teacher with a passion for cinema; Fábio Mota, cinematographer trained in Amsterdam and London, with work on BAFTA-nominated shorts and series such as “O Clube” and “Na Porta ao Lado”; and João Torgal, co-author of the Antena 3 podcast and feature “Os Cinéfilos Que Ninguém Pediu”, a journalist representing Antena 3.

The festival was glad to receive production support from CB Business Consulting and to partner with Casa do Comum on a party celebrating the venue’s 5th anniversary.