MONSTRA‘s return is fast approaching. The next edition of the festival – it’s already the twenty-fourth! – takes place from 20 to 30 March and, as always, features a careful selection of the best current Portuguese and international animation cinema in an extensive programme that also includes activities for all ages and a series of exhibitions. We’ll start by revealing some highlights from the Opening Ceremony programme: One Way Cycle, by Alicia Nuñez Puerto, Mind the Gap, by José-Manuel Xavier and O Rapas que Apagava Beijos, by Radostina Neykova and Fernando Galrito.
One Way Cycle, produced by Sardinha em Lata, is about two sisters who emigrate to Havana at the beginning of the 20th century in search of a better life. In O Rapas que Apagava Beijos, we explore the different meanings of kisses in a short film about the urgent need to rediscover human warmth. Both are world premieres. Finally, in Mind the Gap, José-Manuel Xavier works from Luís Tinoco’s work of the same name.
Over the last quarter of a century, MONSTRA has welcomed more than a million spectators, with around 12,500 films and 3,000 sessions. The festival has been visited by more than two thousand creators, directors and animators, with around three dozen Oscar nominees. MONSTRA is today a meeting place for people, a space for dialogue and the exchange of ideas, which extends beyond the big screen in exhibitions, conferences, masterclasses, workshops for adults and children, as well as other cross-cutting activities linking animation to other artistic areas.
This year’s invited country is Austria, the country responsible for one of the most exciting productions in animation cinema in all its guises, especially the more experimental and abstract. The historical retrospective, conceived by Thomas Renoldner, director and curator of the Vienna Shorts festival, includes a set of eight programmes that take a thematic journey through the main works and authors from this country, from the pioneering works of the 1920s, going through: the Austrian avant-garde trend, the socially observant humour of Maria Lassnig to the most recent works, that include more classical narratives. It also includes a retrospective that revisits some of the contemporary films that have featured in previous editions of the festival since it was founded in 2000, bringing together a group of talents that are still very active today on the international animation scene.
Back in Portugal for this edition, the festival is teaming up with the Cinemateca Portuguesa to celebrate the tenth anniversary of COLA – Coletivo Audiovisual, with an exhibition specifically highlighting the production company’s work in cinema, from the feature film Bruno Aleixo’s Christmas to short films, including Ice Merchants, a film nominated for an Oscar in 2023. The exhibition includes project materials, film stills and making-of videos, and can be visited from 20 February until 3 May 2025, from Monday to Saturday between 2pm and 7.30pm, at the Cinemateca Portuguesa.
Outros Movimentos brings together around 100 works by José-Manuel Xavier, in an exhibition that includes prints, drawings and paintings. A tireless thinker, writer, animator and draughtsman, the author of an unmistakable style, each of his images is also a movement, a poem, a haiku, which this unprecedented exhibition revisits in a profound way. It can be seen at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes from 14 March to 12 April, where a catalogue will be available, with texts by Luís Tinoco, Pessoa Prize winner for 2024, with whom he collaborated on the short film Mind the Gap.