Movie Talks

March 1 4:00pm

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

Presentation of the project by INÊS REBANDA COELHO

“O Crepitar da Terracota”

O Crepitar da Terracota” is a fantasy and sci-fi literary trilogy, a format that is little explored in Portugal, especially by Portuguese authors. It deals with various ethnicities, cultures, genders and religions in a futuristic world where humans are going through a period of great hardship and deprivation. The first volume of the trilogy, “Fogo” (Fire), is the first part of the project, which included hiring a Portuguese animation studio, Puto Studio, and a sound studio, Estúdios Origami, to create its teaser book. The story of the trilogy was originally conceived for animation, while maintaining the ambition to adapt it for film or series. It is therefore intended that the second and third volumes will also include animated book teasers and will achieve more artistic collaborations in order to explore the full potential of this wonderful story.

Biography

Inês Rebanda Coelho has a degree in Sound and Image and a master’s degree in Cinema and Audiovisual from Universidade Católica Portuguesa. In 2018, she completed her PhD in Communication Sciences at the University of Minho. She is co-founder and co-coordinator of the WG Economics and Management in the Moving Image of the Association of Moving Image Researchers (AIM), co-director and co-editor of the indexed scientific journal Cinema & Território, an effective juror for the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual (ICA), university lecturer, scientific researcher and consultant in film and audiovisual production, financial management and intellectual property. Although she is not a first-time author, “O Crepitar da Terracota” is her first fantasy and science fiction project and reflects a beautiful and long dream of hers imagined in animation.

Moderator: Carlos Coelho Costa, who holds a PhD in Art and Design from the University of Porto, is a lecturer at the University of Maia and a researcher at Ciac (Center for Research in Arts and Communication). Film and television director and producer.

Movie Talks

March 2  5:30pm

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

Presentation of the book by DANYEL GUERRA

Cinema Amor”

Cinema Love” It’s a collection of short texts that I call textosterone. Cinema and love are the active principle of these elucubrations conceived in post-crepuscular times. In these formulations, I exuberate in the use and abuse of the dangerous game of words, daring to be even culturally incorrect. In one of the essays in the collection ‘Against Interpretation’ (1966), the sharp Susan Sontag expresses an observation that will give rise to complete unanimity. “Cinema is the only major new artistic form in our century”. Aware of the importance of this art form, ‘Cinema Love’ opens the curtains of the screen to project short films of thoughts, aphorisms, quotes, reflections, comments, maxims, meditations and tributes to cinema and love. In the audience sit cinephiles and cinephiles (in Serge Daney’s sense) who love cinema above all worldly things. Faithful lovers to the point of cherishing it and worshipping it as a cinemart. A love that saves, that deserves a round of applause from Cannes.

 

Biography

 

Danyel Guerra (aka Danni Guerra) was born in the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, in the beloved country of Brazil, on a November day of Venus, under the sign of Scorpio. In the year that François Truffaut projected the first frames of the Nouvelle Vague in the pages of Les Cahiers du Cinéma. With a degree in History from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto, Guerra repeatedly expressed a preference for the History of Cinema. He attended the courses Cinema and Intervention (at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto) and Comparative Perspectives of the French Nouvelle Vague (at the Alliance Française), taught by Prof. David Pinho Barros. At the end of the 1970s, he began collaborating with the magazine Cinema Novo. He continued this activity with the magazines Cineclube, Tintin, Cineasta and Estreia. At Rádio Porto, in the early 1980s, he wrote a weekly column on the seventh art and in the newspapers Quinzena do Porto, Primeiro de Janeiro, Notícias da Tarde, Jornal de Notícias and Correio da Manhã he wrote dozens of reviews, comments, interviews and reports on the subject. His love of cinema was also expressed in his film club activism. He was simultaneously a member of Cineclube da Boavista, Cineclube do Norte and Cineclube do Porto. In the latter, he was secretary of the board for two successive terms in the 1980s. He was on the jury of several film festivals, most notably the Portuguese Film Prize at Fantasporto. His published work includes Oito e Demy and O Português do Cinemoda (both 2015), which have cinema as their active principle.   More recently, he has published in the magazines Athena, eSTUPIDa and  InComunidade.  She has been a member of the juries of some film festivals, including Fantasporto as the jury for the Portuguese Cinema Prize.

Movie Talks

March 3  4:00pm

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

DEBATE

Cinema Today: the real difficulties of financing

with The Group of 7

The Group of 7: Pedro Farate (Director of Photography), Pedro Gil Vasconcelos (director and screenwriter), Luis Moya (Director of), Isabel Pina (Director), Luís Diogo (Director), Vasco Viana (Director), Beatriz Pacheco Pereira (Fantasporto), and others.

A group of film professionals from the North discuss the real difficulties in making short and feature films. The Group of 7 was formed at Fantasporto 2024.

Movie Talks

March 4

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

Presentation of ANTÓNIO MASSENA’s book

“Variante Mythos – A Morte veio ao Douro”

Presentation: Isabel Pina

4:00pm

“Mythos Variant – Death came to the Douro” Cases of bullying between students at a public school in Gaia result in a tragic event. Alfredo Dias is being chased by two policemen when he is saved by a dead man. On the run, he goes home to see the demented “abó”, who is praying in front of the altar: a table with family photos, a bible and a Snoop Dogg figurine, which he and his grandfather restored to look like Jesus Christ. The cops were killed, they say on TV. Alfredo sets off in search of answers and, on his way to school, meets an albino girl, naked and undernourished. The end of the world in underpants has begun in Porto.

Biography

António Massena, author of Variante Mythos – A Morte veio ao Douro is the young Portuguese novelist António Massena, 24, with a degree in Marketing and a master’s degree in Digital Communication. He is an avid reader of all genres he can get his hands on and knows the main authors and works of the fantastic genre, in books, films and games. He lives and creates his characters and scenes in Vila Nova de Gaia and enjoys walking through the streets of Porto, both cities that are the setting for the first story in a saga that is already on its way to the second book, in a light and attractive text, at the pace of a movie or comic book.

The book is on sale in the main bookstores and on platforms all over the world where it can be read in Portuguese, in 601 printed pages and also in e-book.  It is a work of Portuguese fiction in the universal apocalyptic novel subgenre, with a comic book rhythm. The main settings of the story are Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto. The first book in the Variante Mythos series was even the subject of the author’s master’s thesis. The author’s schedule and the work’s progress can be followed on social media at @variantemythos on Instagram and Facebook.

Presentation: Isabel Pina, director of the documentary “Fantasporto 40 Years”, among others.

Presentation of Beatriz Pacheco Pereira’s book “O Amanhã Mais Perfeito”

5:30pm

O Amanhã Mais Perfeito” is Science Fiction Novel. Portugal. The Great Disaster. In these times of wars between superpowers, Democracy imposes itself as a political system, although fragile and imperfect, but always desired.  So that the world doesn’t reach annihilation. This book talks about what might happen to Portugal when the most feared thing has happened. A glimmer of hope. A new beginning.

After the end of civilization, a group of elected officials comes out of the underground and builds the Sphere with all the Knowledge that has been preserved.  The Initiators’ desire is to make a perfect democracy. In a new and just society, a man and a woman find themselves lovers. But can the human soul ever let the Perfect Utopia grow?

Biography

Beatriz Pacheco Pereira was born in Porto. She studied at the Universities of Coimbra and Porto and graduated in Germanic Philology. Active in various areas of culture, she is a writer, film critic and researcher and sculptor. She was the first woman to write film criticism in a daily newspaper in Portugal and co-founded Fantasporto – Porto International Film Festival in 1981. She was an ICA jury member in the areas of Screenplay and First Works. She has published several books, essays, chronicles, short stories and novels, including the novel “Alice and the Vultures” and the anthology “Fantasporto 40 Anos: uma História de Cinema”. For Fantasporto, he was awarded the Medal of Cultural Merit and the Gold Medal of the City of Porto.

Movie Talks

March 5

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

Presentation of the book by MARGARIDA FONSECA

“Na Mesa ao Lado” 

Presentation: Alexandra Ferreira

4:00pm

“Na Mesa ao Lado”

Margarida Fonseca was born in Luanda, Angola, in 1960 and came with her family to Portugal when she was a teenager,
to Portugal when she was a teenager. She dreamed of becoming a doctor, but a competitive exam made her set back her hopes and she began her career as a journalist at the regional weekly “Defesa de Espinho”, from where she moved to the daily “O Primeiro de Janeiro”. However, it was at “Jornal de Notícias” that he stayed the longest: 32 years. She left the newspaper, where she became editor, in May 2024, after 43 years in journalism. She worked in radio, was involved in the Espinho Animated Film Festival (Cinanima) and published several chronicles.

Presenter: Alexandra Ferreira Martins, editor of “Na Mesa ao Lado”, has a degree in Social Communication and a Master’s degree in Political Science. As well as editing books, she is studying for a PhD in Global Studies.

Presentation of the book by PEDRO GIL VASCONCELOS

“O Escritor de Epitáfios”

Presentation: Carlos Daniel

5:30pm

“O Escritor de Epitáfios”

A book about a man who deals with the dead. With each passing day, he realizes his own fate and that of those around him. One day, he decides to go hiking in the Peneda Gerês National Park. He gets lost on the way, but finds himself further on. A work that starts from everyday life and takes us through history and along paths of witches, ghosts and wolves, to the end of the road, where a new destiny begins.  When you set off, the inner and outer worlds merge and reveal themselves.

Biography

Pedro Gil Vasconcelos was born in Porto and has a degree in Cinema and Audiovisuals from ESAP – Escola Superior Artística do Porto. He began his career as a journalist in 1983 at Rádio Delírio. In 1991, he joined RTP, was part of the launch of NTV and began producing television content. From 2004 to 2010, he dedicated himself to communications, leading the PR team at El Corte Inglés Gaia Porto. From 2010 onwards, he dedicated himself to managing his own projects, including the film Teratron – As Cobaias (ZON cinemas) and the programs 4 Tempos (RTP3) and Romaria do Meu Coração (RTP1). As a director, his documentaries, which have won several international awards, The Magic is Lost, O Meu Caminho and O Nosso Caminho stand out. He is the author of the book Caminhos que Faço Meus and has published numerous texts on mobility, travel and walking. He is a regular walker and passionate about motorized sports, having been a practitioner, and outdoor sports, namely trekking and a confessed lover of the Camino de Santiago. He took part in the Fantasporto jury for the Portuguese Film Prize. In 2025, he is part of the jury for Directors’ Week.

Presentation- Carlos Daniel, RTP journalist

Movie Talks

March 6

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

Presentation of the book by RUI NUNES:

Artificial Intelligence: Social Concerns, Ethical Proposals and Political Orientations”

Followed by

Debate on The Implications of Artificial Intelligence on Society and Cinema in particular

5:30pm

Presentation of the book by RUI NUNES:

Artificial Intelligence: Social Concerns, Ethical Proposals and Political Orientations”

If doctors, engineers and society in general don’t know how Artificial Intelligence makes a decision, then how do we know we’re heading in the right direction?

Followed by

Debate on The Implications of Artificial Intelligence on Society and Cinema in particular

Biography

Professor Rui Nunes is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, President of the International Chair of Bioethics, Vice-President of the National Academy of Medicine and President of the 17th World Bioethics Conference in Ljubljana 2025, and is one of the most accredited personalities in the field of Ethics in all areas of knowledge. He previously collaborated with Fantasporto 2014 on talks dedicated to Ethics, the theme of the festival that year.

Moderator: Beatriz Pacheco Pereira

Movie Talks

March 7

4:00pm

BAR BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA

Lecture by DR PEDRO GARCIA ROSADO

100 years of Redemptive Violence: why we love the smell of napalm at the movies

From “Battleship Potemkine” to Sam Peckinpah’s “Wild Gang” and the stylization of violence, to David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and fear, to Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and the “little death”, all cinema that familiarizes us with violence and helps us in the face of fear. Art that looks bad.

Pedro Garcia Rosado was born in Lisbon in 1955. As a journalist, he has worked as an editor and contributor for various national media outlets and was Variety‘s correspondent in Portugal. He was a film critic and author of the Portuguese video yearbooks from 1989 to 1993, and has been a communications consultant and professional translator. He has eleven published novels, all thrillers, translated in France and Spain, the most recent being O Último Refúgio (Clube do Autor). He maintains the opinion blog “Pedro Garcia Rosado”.