The 16th edition of the Santarém International Film Festival will take place from May 24th to 28th, 2023, in Teatro Sá da Bandeira, Casa do Brasil and other venues around the city. The program will focus on films that explore the relationship between cinema and territory, in the context of agricultural, rural or environmental themes.

Our sections will be accompanied by talks, meetings and other activities.

Special moments within the program, with film screenings and the opening and closing ceremonies. At the closing ceremony, the Festival's awards ceremony will take place.

Recent films from all over the world with different poetics, forms and duration, unique works that map the contemporary cinema questioning themselves and what they portray.

This section presents a panorama of the diversity of visions, practices and languages in contemporary Portuguese cinema through a rigorous, open and attentive selection of films.

In this edition, the In Focus section is dedicated to agropoetics of liberation and ecological struggles. This set of films proposes a reflection on the devastation of natural landscapes, as well as on the history of colonial and extractivist violence around the agricultural practices of communities in Bangladesh, Palestine, Mozambique and Mali. A history that also includes gestures of resistance, in an attempt to cultivate living spaces of emancipation and freedom.

Non-competitive section that will present a general panorama of the national and international contemporary production.

The session Cinema at the Table, which will take place in the former Jesuit Dining Room of the Diocesan Museum of Santarém. Combining a cinema session with a dinner, FICS challenged Chef João Correia to create a tasting menu based on the film Religo by Flora Pesenti. Made with local products, the dishes inspired by the film will be savored by the guests after the screening, in a moment of discovery between cinema and gastronomy.

Activities taking place at Casa do Brasil at Casa do Brasil

The FICS Educational Project, Seeds and Sprouts , will extend throughout the Festival dates. In order to make the programmed contents accessible, the activities will be designed for different age groups, covering children and their families, the community of teachers and educators, but also other facilitators and professionals of the educational service.