PortoPostDoc

Porto/Post/Doc

04-13 December 2014

Porto had ten days of cinema, ten days of parties, concerts, screenings, debates and meetings that joined over 6000 spectators and proved that is possible to make a new festival in the city. Porto/Post/Doc is now an international film festival that celebrated the finest in contemporary cinema and didn’t overlook the popular expressions of the seventh art. It took place between the 4th and 13th of December in three different locations: Rivoli, Municipal Theatre; Cinema e Bar Passos Manuel; and Maus Hábitos — Espaço de Intervenção Cultural.

The best proof of success is clearly explicit in the numbers of this Festival: the first Edition of Porto/Post/Doc had 70 events (including screenings, debates, concerts, parties, etc.) and 6300 viewers, which makes an average of 100 people per event, and several screenings sold out. The most memorable moment of the festival was, beyond question, the homage to Manoel de Oliveira on his 106th birthday. On the 11th of December, the Main Auditorium was completely full and everyone sang happy birthday to our dearest dean of cinema, just before the screenings of both his first and most recent film (“Working on the Douro River” and “The Old Man of Belém”, respectively).   

Apart from the homage to Oliveira, the Main Auditorium had other two sold out screenings: The Opening Ceremony and The Awards Ceremony, in which Porto’s City Council and ICA (Instituto do Cinema e Audiovisual) were also present, as well as other partners and sponsors.

The success of Porto/Post/Doc was also due to the guests that came to the festival. We had around 250 international guests, including more than 20 directors of the films screened in the different programmes. In terms of Press, the festival had 60 accredited journalists (from Portugal and foreign countries), and got media coverage by the most important national newspapers and television channels. The public enjoyed the programme and all the foreign programmers present praised it. The representatives of international festivals like FID Marseille, CPH:DOX and Locarno publicly recommended Porto/Post/Doc.

And because this excellence was obviously also present in the Competition Programme, the jury decided to award three documentaries within the Grand Prize Atelier de Créateurs by Associação Des Savoir Faire (3000€): “Letters to Max”, by Eric Baudelaire, was the big winner, and there were also two honourable mentions, given to “Storm Children — Book One”, by the multi awarded Philippine director Lav Diaz, and to “João Bénard da Costa — Others will love the Things I loved”, by the Portuguese director Manuel Mozos. In the category “Best Emerging Filmmaker”, the Prize Biberstein Gusmão (one Artistic Residency in Moinho da Fonte Santa) the winner was Nicole Vögele for “Nebel”, and Ziad Homsi was given a Honourable Mention for “Our Terrible Country”.