Documentary film in Odemira to discuss “contemporary challenges”

Othe “contemporary challenges” of the world will be highlighted in the programming of this year’s edition of Doc’s Kingdom – International Seminar of Documental Cinema, which starts on Friday in the municipality of Odemira, district of Beja.

The initiative, which extends until the 18th of this month, is organized by Apordoc – Association by the Documentary, with funding from the Cinema and Audiovisual Institute (ICA) and the Odemira Chamber, with the theme “Subcurrents, conjunctions” (“Undercurrents, counterspells”).

In a statement sent to the agency Lusa, Apordoc stressed that Doc’s Kingdom is currently “an indispensable meeting point for the documentary and cinema of the present, where urgent political issues are discussed from innovative film practices”.

“ This year, the role of cinema is questioned in a world where the omnipresence of images is an impavid witness of accelerated dispossession processes and of genocidal colonial violence, unable to change its course ", added the association.

In this context, one can read, “the curatorship is not organized around a linear theme, but before the encounter between ways of making cinema and thinking about political resistance as ways of conjuring, building and keeping worlds alive, despite the persistence of oppression and violence”.

In 2026, the Doc’s Kingdom programming committee had the collaboration of programmer, film critic and professor Victor Guimarães (Brazil) and cultural organizer, filmmaker and programmer Jowe Harfouche (born in Lebanon and rooted in Germany), who joined the co-directors of the event, Catarina Boieiro and Stefanie Baumann.

During the initiative will be presented, among others, works by filmmakers Camilo Restrepo (Colombia), Annalisa D. Quagliata Blanco (Mexico), Marta Popivoda (Servia), Mohamed Soueid (Lebanon) and Oraib Toukam (USA).

The program will also include works of the Portuguese José Álvaro Morais (1943-2004) and Silvia das Fades.

The premiere of the short film “Lycopersicum” is also planned, held by João Pedro Soares, under the first edition of the Vislumbre – Residence of Documental Creation in Odemira, a joint initiative of Doc’s Kingdom and Cinema Fulgor, with the support of the city council.

According to Apordoc, the film was made this year in this municipality of Alentejo coast and is centered on the “cultivation of tomatoes, their practices, stories and mythologies”.

Associated with this short film, the exhibition “Solanum”, around the creative process developed in the territory, “in particular in dialogue with small local farmers”, which was supported by CACO – Association of Craftsmen of the Council of Odemira, will be shown in the CREAR Space in Odemira.

The Doc’s Kingdom program in 2026 includes an extension in Lisbon, with the exhibition of the film “Mexico Will No Longer Exist!”, followed by a ‘masterclass’ with director Annalisa D. Quagliata Blanco, on the 20th, at 18:30, at the Faculty of Fine Arts.

The following night, the Cinemateca receives, at 9:00 p.m., the film “Our Voice of Earth, Memory and Future”, from Colombians Marta Rodríguez and Jorge Silva, in a session that will be introduced by Victor Guimarães.