Cinanima films focusing on housing and demand for belonging

Athe portuguese works in the edition of 2026 of Cinânima - International Festival of Cinema de Animação de Espinho have as dominant theme the housing and the search for the sense of belonging, revealed today the organizers of the event.

From Friday to the 22nd in the aforementioned city of Aveiro district and other rooms of the Porto Metropolitan Area, the event will have 33 national films in competition: 10 made by professionals, who compete for the António Gaio Prize, and 23 directed by students, in categories for adults and children under 15.

After evaluating all these projects, André Ramada, one of the programmers of the festival that this year celebrates 50 years, declares to Lusa: “If we had to describe this year’s national program, the indicated word would be ‘home’.”.

Contrary to perspectives that question whether home is the set of the walls of a home or the group of people through which an individual feels welcomed and loved, the program of 2026 is thus “marked by nostalgia, feeling and seeking to belong somewhere”.

“ This year the national competition presents one of its most emotional programs ", guarantees André Ramada. “At a time when the housing crisis in our country becomes one of the most present and most talked problems, it does not surprise us how directors end up revisiting the word ‘home’ and what it truly means,” he says.

The programmer highlights, moreover, that since its foundation in 1976 (then under the name “Animation Film Show”), Cinanima has always functioned as “a safe and open space for learning”, whatever the themes explored in the films to be exhibited or in the workshops and conferences to be held.

“ We are the oldest film festival in the country and the third oldest animated film festival in the world ", recalls. “Created just after April 25th, Cinnima became one of the first places to explore this art freely and it is very common to hear professionals in the area remember the festival as the first one they were or the first one in which any film of its authorship was shown or awarded.”.

For André Ramada, this is due to the fact that, over five decades, the event has been “always ready for new experiences, for new collaborations and to risk investing in young talents”.

In this perspective, “celebrating half a century of Cinnaima is inevitably celebrating 50 years of world animation and five decades of Portuguese cinema”, always with a “constant bet on novelty”, which continues to assure the event the “place of relevance that it has conquered” and allows to keep it as “one of the few Portuguese film festivals qualified to Oscars” of the American academy.

Among the various proposals that evoke this route, the 2026 program will include the presentation on November 19, at the Municipal Theatre of Vila do Conde, of the study entitled “50 years of female representation through the archives of the Cinnima Festival”. The research in question focuses on the trajectory of women in Portuguese animation and, mapping the path of these filmmakers, intends to promote their visibility and honor “their trajectories, resistances and achievements”.

To present the study were invited directors who “symbolize five decades” of national animation and have personal stories to share about the path of the sector since 1976: Cátia Peres, Marina Estela Graça, Regina Pessoa, Alice Guimarães, Marta Andrade and Carina Corso.