Fantasporto 2026 recorded a 20% increase in spectators, but the festival director, Beatriz Pacheco Pereira, warned that without more support and more cinemas in Porto, the expansion of the event will be compromised.
Speaking to Lusa at the end of the awards presentation for the 2026 edition of the Porto International Festival, this Saturday, March 7, the event director highlighted that “cinema depends on the future” and that, if they have “better working conditions, more will be done”.
“In any case, the 2027 Fantas is already being designed (…) There will be a competition this year from the ICA [Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual]in the coming months, and we will obviously present our program and ask for more support”, assured Beatriz Pacheco Pereira, who said she expected “more than the support of 36 thousand euros” that they have received from that institute.
And he continued: “In this competition we are going to present an extensive program, but they also need to understand that it is not just what happens in Lisbon. In Porto there are good things and there are other groups of people committed to doing it, not just in the cinema area. And, therefore, this competition will be determined for the next three years”.
Regarding the expansion of the number of theaters, after Fantasporto established itself in Batalha – Centro de Cinema in the last four years, the director wants, if possible, to return to Teatro Municipal Rivoli in 2027, but also to be at Cinema Passos Manuel
“Rivoli is a room with dignity that allowed us to have another type of programming, more complementary and, therefore, we have the chance to expand if the financial conditions are available. At this moment we are not able to expand”, he said.
The film The Dollmakerthe Argentine production by José Maria Cicala, won the award for best film at Fantasporto 2026, a work that also received the distinction for the best actor, Rodrigo Noya, it was announced this Saturday.
With regard to national productions, it was announced on Friday that the film kids, by Luís Alves, won the Grand Prize for Portuguese cinema.
The 46th edition of Fantasporto began on the 27th, at Batalha – Centro de Cinema, with the premiere of Bakudan, by Japanese director Akira Naguai, and ends on Sunday, the 8th, with After Us, The Floodby Finnish Arto Halonen.
Between one date and the next, the festival programmed around a hundred films, 31 of them in previews.
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