The selection committee chose 128 works from among 966 submissions received, reflecting “the diversity and vitality of cinema produced by women and non-binary people worldwide”.

“This year’s theme is ‘Work’, a broad and transversal theme that invites reflection on multiple social, cultural and political issues,” indicates the organisation in the festival's presentation dossier.

In the official selection, noteworthy films include “Fantasy” by Katarina Resek, the 1940s Swiss drama “Silent Rebellion” by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo, the sex strike in “The Strike” by Gabrielle Stemmer, the 1975 Icelandic protests through the lens of Pamela Hogan in “The Day Iceland Stood Still,” and “Naima” by Anna Thommen.

The extensive national selection includes “Fragmented” by Balolas Carvalho and Tanya Marar, “Eu queria ser tudo” by Luísa Costa Pinto, “The inhabitants” by Maureen Fazendeiro, “Cleópatra & António” by Diego Bragá, and “Porque hoje é sábado” by Alice Eça Guimarães.

Also programmed are films by Mónica Martins Nunes, Sara N. Santos, Inês Sena, Mariana Leal, Sofia Bost, Maria Inês Gonçalves, and Marta Reis Andrade, among others.

The festival will kick off at Batalha – Centro de Cinema on 21April, with the opening session featuring the screening of “Sugar Island” (2024), a film by Johanné Gómez Terrero that follows a 14-year-old girl in a sugarcane-based community in the Dominican Republic.

The ninth edition of the event will also honour Raquel Soeiro de Brito, born in 1925, who worked as a geographer and filmmaker, and the public will be able to see three of her films.

“Through a keen eye on geographies, landscapes and communities, her films construct a unique body of work, revealing different ways of seeing, inhabiting and interpreting the world,” reads the presentation of the tribute session on 22 April at the Batalha cinema.

The exhibition “Lavores” evokes female resistance in cinema, reflecting on the various facets of work, from the home to the struggle, from childbirth to the shadows, to “occupy the spaces between the lines, the boundaries between genres, the social and the personal, documentary and fiction, memory and archive,” in a work with five sessions curated by Amarante Abramovici and Beatriz Dinis.

Another thematic cycle aims to anticipate a program of the Portuguese Cinematheque, bringing works by three pioneers of Portuguese cinema, also on April 22nd: Soeiro de Brito, Amélia Borges Rodrigues and Bárbara Virgínia, who filmed “when that was still a daring act.”

Lula Pena will provide live sound design based on films by Raquel Soeiro de Brito, and screenings will also include “Cascaes” by Amélia Borges Rodrigues and “Aldeia dos Rapazes – Orfanato Santa Isabel de Albarraque” by Bárbara Virgínia, the first woman to direct a feature film with sound in Portugal (“Three Days Without God”), selected for the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946.

In addition to Batalha, the festival's main venue, the program will also take place at the Casa Comum of the University of Porto, the Lusófona University, Passos Manuel, Maus Hábitos, the Nuno Centeno Gallery, and the MIRA Galleries, including talks and parties.

Organised by the XX Element Project association, the Porto Femme Festival is a co-production with the municipal company Ágora and has financial support from the Portuguese Film and Audiovisual Institute and the Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth, among several other institutional supports.