at the border
( festival theme )

In an era of rapidly shifting physical, social and cultural boundaries, what insights can architecture, urban thinking and spatial practices offer to help us better understand the concept of borders? The 12th edition of the Arquiteturas Film Festival, themed "At the Border", explores how both physical and symbolic borders shape built environments and territories, influencing daily lives, individual and collective identities, and social dynamics. It also examines how these lives and identities, as they encounter systems of social control through border regimes and urban boundaries, in turn, shape our built spaces.

We invite films across all mediums that explore the embodied, emotional, performative, material, visual and spatial politics of cross-border human mobilities. These films should engage with the festival’s theme by revealing lived experiences of these complex interactions through intersectional perspectives – such as class, gender and race – while addressing various forms of oppression and discrimination as well as support and solidarity. The festival seeks to foster a more inclusive, socially conscious approach to architectural thought and practice, ultimately contributing to challenge existing borders.

→ instituto
( festival organiser )

INSTITUTO is a focal point for different forms of cultural expression, located in the heart of Porto. The team’s interests and backgrounds have given rise to a programme that diverges from the field of architecture to encompass the visual and spatial arts, critical thinking and multidisciplinary collaborations. We seek to encourage the creation and exploration of new contemporary discourses through interdisciplinarity, the informality of the space and the will to tackle burning issues in today’s society.

Since 2021, INSTITUTO has taken up the challenge of organising and reinventing the former Arquiteturas Film Festival. Now in Porto, the festival is cementing its reputation as an international platform for discussing and disseminating architectural production through films, exhibitions and debates.