The Closing Night of Queer Porto 11 - International Queer Film Festival took place this Saturday evening, 8 November, at 9.30 pm, at the Batalha Centro de Cinema, with the national premiere of the British feature Hot Milk, directed by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, which world premiered in competition at the Berlinale last February. The Official Competition award and the Casa Comum Award, which awards the best Portuguese short film, were announced at the ceremony. Below, the winners of Queer Porto 11:

 

OFFICIAL COMPETITION

 

The jury, composed of RTP producer and director Adriano Nazareth, transdisciplinary artist AURA, and producer and filmmaker Catarina de Sousa, deliberated:

 

Best Film

The Nature of Invisible Things, Rafaela Camelo (Brazil, Chile, 2025, 91’)

 

“A unique film that follows two families as they leave the toxicity of the city behind for the protection of the ‘farm’, where souls are healed and transformed. It is a sensitive celebration of the passage of life and death, in which love asserts itself as the ultimate form of resistance.”

 

The award consists of the acquisition of screening rights by RTP, worth €3,000.

 

Special Mention

Mea Culpa, Patrick Tass (Belgium, 2024, 72’)

 

“A documentary filmed from the intimate archive between mother and son in a moving portrait about identity, migration and reconciliation, embracing sexuality and claiming the multiplicity of nationalities, as an echo of empathy and humanity in a time marked by walls, wars and genocides.”

 

Audience Award

Queer as Punk, Yihwen Chen (Malaysia, Indonesia, 2025, 88’)

 

 

CASA COMUM AWARD

 

The jury, appointed by the Reitoria da Universidade do Porto, and composed of Anabela Santos, cultural communications advisor at the University of Porto, Jorge Peixoto Freitas, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, and Telmo Fernandes, researcher in sociology and psychology, deliberated:

 

Best Film

The Insect Graveyard, Alex Simões (Portugal, 2025, 20’)

 

“An experimental film that innovatively questions us about grief and death, topics that are still taboo. It poses existential questions, revisiting places and childhood memories, reframing these spaces in a search for identity and transformation from loss.”

 

The award, worth €500, is sponsored by the Reitoria da Universidade do Porto.

 

 

In partnership with the University of Porto, the Casa Comum Award is a competition exclusively dedicated to Portuguese short films with queer themes, now in its fourth edition at Queer Porto 11. Launched in 2021, this award stems, on the one hand, from the increase in film production in Portugal dedicated to this theme and, on the other, from a need to promote these works to the audiences in Porto. This edition highlighted the national cinema, with the world premiere of two titles – the documentary Outlasting – Living Archives of Older Queers, by researcher Ana Cristina Santos and director Nuno Barbosa, and the short documentary The Immovable Structure, by visual artist and filmmaker Juliana Julieta – as well as the national premiere of two short films – The Insect Graveyard, by visual artist Alex Simões, and Erasure, by artist Fá Maria.

 

The 11th Queer Porto presented a total of 40 films, divided into 27 screenings, over five days, with the participation of 37 guests – including filmmakers, actors, panellists and jurors. Overall, the screenings and talks, divided between the Batalha Centro de Cinema, Casa Comum (Reitoria da Universidade do Porto) and Passos Manuel, attracted an audience of around 1.800 spectators, in addition to the opening and closing parties at Bar of Soap and Passos Manuel, respectively.

 

With a programme strongly influenced by the troubled international political and social situation, Queer Porto 11 welcomed and promoted activist and critically-driven cinema, but also a more personal cinema addressing themes such as trauma and overcoming adversity, family and other support networks, trans identities, in a curatorial line that equally highlighted issues related to social resistance, queer ecologies, and the transformative role of both artistic creation and clubbing culture for the queer community, celebrating the rich spectrum of LGBTQIA+ experiences and the transformative power that a queer gaze can have on the world.

 

With another edition of Queer Porto now over, the dates for Queer Lisboa 30, a special edition of the festival, have already been confirmed. It will take place from 18 to 26 September 2026 at Cinema São Jorge and Cinemateca Portuguesa. Queer Porto will return in 2026, on dates to be announced.