BEAST 2024 GENERAL PROGRAMME
“Where do we go from here?” is the theme for the festival's 7th edition
BEAST International Film Festival returns to Porto from September 25 to 29, 2024 at various venues in the city – Batalha Centro de Cinema, Cinema Passos Manuel, Cinema Trindade, OKNA and Térmita – with film screenings, talks, workshops, exhibitions and much more!
This year’s official competition features 23 short films from 13 countries. The selection is divided into 4 categories: EAST WAVE (fiction), EAST DOC (documentary), EXPERIMENTAL EAST (experimental) and ANIMAEAST (animation). The jury for this edition is led by Heleen Gerritsen (director of goEast), Juliana Julieta (visual artist), Tadeusz Strączek (director of Watch Docs) for the EAST WAVE and EAST DOC categories; and Eugen Jebeleanu (director, actor), Jakub Spevák (writer, screenwriter and artistic director of the Anča Festival), Marika Agu (curator and archive manager at the CCA), for the EXPERIMENTAL EAST and ANIMAEAST categories.
BEAST invites the public to discover a wide range of cinematic gems from this edition’s focus country, Estonia. The following programs are added: OPENING SESSION, TARTU DOCS ARTS OF SURVIVAL and CLUB CLASSICS: VIDEO ART.
The festival’s OPENING SESSION showcases three short films from the country’s most recent context: “Sauna Day” (2024) by Anna Hints and Tushar Prakash, “Heiki on the Other Side” (2022) by Katariina Aule and “Miisufy” (2024) by Liisi Grünberg. “Sauna Day”, recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. This edition highlights the presence of directors Anna Hints and Tushar Prakash at the festival, who will share their creative process with the public in a conversation at the Batalha Film Center’s café bar, which has free entrance.
Tartu, in the south of Estonia, is this year’s European Capital of Culture and, in this context, the “Arts of Survival” project was developed, bringing together eight filmmakers who documented different stories from the region. BEAST presents a selection of three short films that are premiering in Portugal: The River and A Cat, by Maria Aua, Hilda Ha. Off the Grid by Eva Kübar and The House by Carl Olsson.
BEAST maintains its connection with video art, and this year presents CLUB CLASSICS: a program dedicated to video art works from the 2000s, with the motto set by the dance floor – and everything that comes after.
The VISEGRAD FILM HUB section is back and features four sessions: LAPILLI, CINE-GEOGRAPHY: Blackness and Race in the PRL, POLISH YOUNG TALENTS and FAIRY GARDEN.
LAPILLI is Paula Ďurinová’s latest feature, which was in the Proxima Competition at Karlovy Vary 2024 and now has its Portuguese premiere at BEAST. CINE-GEOGRAPHY, a space dedicated to the connection between Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, is back under the title Blackness and Race in the PRL, a program curated by Magda Lipska and Monika Talarczyk. POLISH YOUNG TALENTS, curated by the Short Waves Film Festival, features a selection of short fiction, documentary and animation films by young Polish directors. Curator Szymon Stemplewski will be present at the screening. BEAST also presents FAIRY GARDEN by Gergő Somogyvári. The film, screened in collaboration with the Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, won the Audience Award at the last edition of the festival. The session will be attended by the director.
The HOW TO CARE FOR COSMOS section presents the programs SUCH FEELING, AFTERWATER and QUEER UKRAINE: SUNNY BUNNY.
SUCH FEELING by Alex Baczyński-Jenkins and AFTERWATER by Dane Komljen are two feature films screened during this program, which also features five Ukrainian shorts in QUEER UKRAINE: SUNNY BUNNY, curated by Ukraine’s first queer film festival.
Finally, the EEFFN – Eastern European Film Festival Network section – a space for the screening of the winner of the EEFFN award (a network comprising festivals from six countries, namely Germany (GoEast Film Festival), the Netherlands (Eastern Neighbors Film Festival), France (l’Est Film Festival), Luxembourg, Austria (EU Youth Cinema: Green Deal) and Portugal (BEAST IFF)) – consists of the screening of the film January, by Viesturs Kairiss.
As part of the parallel program, there will be a conversation promoted in partnership with the Institute of Documentary Film on the contributions of Roma filmmakers and producers, both locally and internationally. For one weekend, Štefan Oliš’s immersive art installation will be activated in collaboration with TRAKT – a combination of interactive narratives and experimental soundscapes, permeated by video art, sound, painting and graphics.
Eighty films from 19 countries will be shown over five days. There’s an opening party at the Batalha Centro de Cinema café-bar and three parties at the Passos Manuel Cinema, including the closing party.
Don’t miss the chance to experience once again the best of the Wild Wild East!
