Jury

André Azevedo
Director
Portuguese filmmaker born in Lisbon and currently based in Esposende. In 2021, he completed his Master’s Degree in Audiovisual Communication – Specialization in Production and Directing at the Escola Superior de Media Artes e Design (Polytechnic Institute of Porto), in Vila do Conde. He has been writing, producing and directing films since 2018, most notably Mestre Bruno e as Macumbas Pérfidas da Bola (2024), winner of the Best National Film award at the last edition of our festival. He has also been a film programmer at the Núcleo de Intervenção Cultural de Esposende (NICE) since 2025. Fernando Vasquez
Fest Director | New Directors, New Films
He has a degree in Film from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College and a postgraduate degree in Journalism from the London School of Journalism. He has been Director of Film Programming at FEST – New Directors | New Cinema since 2010. He has been a film critic and journalist for publications in the UK, Portugal and Brazil, and collaborated with Nisi Masa between 2012 and 2016. He also works on international distribution strategies and has served on juries for festivals such as Kort, Shortwaves and Valletta Film Festival. Rita Cadima de Oliveira
Film Critic
With a degree in Cultural and Communication Sciences from the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, she was a film critic and editor at the Tribuna do Cinema website between 2022 and 2025. She is the author of the Chacun Son Cinéma website, a space dedicated to sharing cinephile views, where she writes analyses and reflections on the seventh art. Joana Toste
Director
He was born in May 1970. He graduated in Industrial Design and later did a post-graduate course in the same field at the Glasgow School of Art/Portuguese Design Center. He studied painting at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon and has been working in animation since 1992. Paulo Moreiras
Writer
He started out in comics as a cartoonist and screenwriter. Micro-stories, short stories, poems followed and now he writes novels. For as long as he can remember, he has been passionate about cinema.