01–05.07.2026
( urban age )
official programme
official programme
guest institution
portugal special
official programme
The 13th edition of the Arquiteturas Film Festival centres its Official Programme on the festival’s theme - “Urban Age” - proposing an in-depth reflection on the role of cinema in interpreting and transforming contemporary cities, through a carefully curated selection of 24 films, organised into 9 sessions.
The selected films, (co)produced in 22 countries, move across different geographies and contexts, revealing diverse ways of observing, inhabiting, and imagining the city, and highlighting cinema as a tool for analysis, questioning, and the projection of urban futures. They explore the multiple dimensions of urban life - from housing and public space to infrastructure, urban ecologies, mobilities, and cultural identities - offering a critical and sensitive reading of today’s social, political, and environmental challenges.
All films were submitted through an international open call and will be in competition, together with 5 films from the Portugal Special section, culminating in an awards ceremony that recognises the winning works with an original trophy. Screenings are accompanied by Q&A sessions with attending filmmakers, promoting direct dialogue with audiences. The programme also includes a roundtable conversation among filmmakers, deepening the issues raised throughout the sessions and encouraging shared reflection on the role of architecture and cinema in reading the contemporary city.
portugal special
The Portugal Special Programme is part of the festival as a section dedicated to the local and national context, presenting films shot in Portugal that engage with the theme “Urban Age”. Through a programme that includes films, debates, walks, and a workshop, it reflects on the tensions between development, memory, and everyday life.
The selection of seven films (five in competition, submitted through the open call), organised into four sessions, spans different geographies and addresses themes such as housing, tourism, urban transformation, and the commodification of public space.
Portugal Special expands the festival beyond screening venues, activating cultural, urban, and heritage spaces. The programme includes walks in Porto’s historic centre and in the Porto Metropolitan Area (Maia), as well as a workshop with public moments of discussion and presentation of results, promoting encounters between cinema, architecture, and the city.
guest programme
In each edition, the Arquiteturas Film Festival presents a Guest Programme, welcoming a collective, institution, or country in dialogue with its central theme. In 2026, we host the Chair of Architecture and Urban Design at ETH Zurich, for a programme curated by Hubert Klumpner and Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou. Klearjos also serves as a member of the Festival jury this year.
Bringing together experimental cinematic practices, sensory ethnographic research, and architectural thinking, it presents a set of works and experiences that explore infrastructures, atmospheres, urban ecosystems, and human and more-than-human relations, developed by artists, researchers, and filmmakers.
The programme includes two film sessions, an installation titled More-Than Cinema, and the launch of the book Manual for Designing Urban Imaginaries, inviting audiences to rethink, experience, and reimagine the city. It proposes a reflection on the role of cinema, art, and pedagogy in the construction and interpretation of urban space. More than a medium of representation, film is understood as an active agent in how we imagine, experience, and transform urban reality.