The awards for the different categories in competition at this year's edition of Curtas Vila do Conde were presented on Saturday, July 25th. The selections were made by the various juries of the sections and by votes from the festival attendees.

COMPETIÇÃO INTERNACIONAL

Grand Prix [DCN Beers]

NOTHING HAPPENS AFTER YOUR ABSENCE, Ibrahim Omar

Jury Statement: What brings us together here, in this amazing festival CURTAS, is our love for cinema and this idea that cinema can make a difference and unite people. With a great simplicity and a small economy, the film we decided to award highlights that idea, and manages to tell a strong but humorous tale about a terrible situation. It imagines screening and watching films as an act of resistance. It gives us some hope for the future, but also reminds us that oppression will always attack art and artists.

Melhor Ficção [ESMAD / P. PORTO] - SPLIT AWARD

HOW TO COOK A CHICKEN UNDERGROUND, Nacho Sánchez, Olivia Delcán

Jury Statement: One of the films we have chosen to honor with the Best Fiction Film award plays with remarkable freedom and intelligence with metacinema, suggesting a beautiful parallel between the creative process and a romantic relationship. It is difficult to combine subtlety, transparency, and mystery, yet this film achieves exactly that with maturity and honesty. It reminds us not only of the beauty of cinema, but also of its power to transform us through the very act of making it.

Best Fiction [ESMAD / P. PORTO] - SPLIT AWARD

OH BOYS, Antonio Donato

Jury Statement: Don’t we all need some tenderness and delicacy? Sometimes, the word is too rude, and we deserve a break. So does the protagonist of this film, which is observing contemporary behaviors with a lot of humour and an incredible sense of rhythm and frame. In the end, comfort will come from the music, with a kindly melancholy.

Best Documentary [ESMAD / P. PORTO]

PLAN CONTRAPLAN, Radu Jude, Adrian Cioflâncă

Jury Statement: Contemporary cinema shows us that even a handful of still images —their assembly and disassembly—can give shape to a film. Cinematic movement no longer resides only within the shot, or even in the film's overall structure, but also in a mysterious narrative force whose source remains elusive. For showing us that it is possible to speak through such means, and for doing so by confronting the darkest past of its country.

Best Animation [ESMAD / P. PORTO]

DERNIER PRINTEMPS, Mathilde Bédouet

Jury Statement: This film brought back memories of a moment in life when everything happened for the first time, and a deeper understanding of that fragile yet luminous territory we call youth. It is a film that observes the experience of growing up with remarkable delicacy, avoiding both easy nostalgia and judgment. It listens to silence, discovery, loss, and transformation with a sensitivity that resonates across generations. Those who are still living that age will find themselves in it; those who have left it behind will revisit it with unexpected tenderness. It is precisely this ability to create a dialogue between past and present while offering a shared space for recognition, that makes Dernier Printemps a deeply human and universal work, and a truly deserving recipient of the Best Animated Short Film award.

Audience Award International Competition [Fricon]

WHAT DO THE MAKNINES DREAM OF, Sarra Ryma

European Film Awards Candidate - Prix Vimeo 2027

OH BOYS, António Donato

PORTUGUESE COMPETITION

Best Film [Escola das Artes, Universidade Católica do Porto + Pulsar Studios + TV Cine + Festhome]

FROM SILENCE TO WORD, João Pedro Barriga

Jury Statement: It's important not to forget cinema's past. But it's equally important to move forward from it. We believe that the Portuguese film we have chosen to award does exactly that, and this is why it captivated us. In it, the Portuguese cinematic tradition evolves toward new forms that reshape image and sound, archive and narrative alike, transforming them into a work that shows how memory and its rewriting can also contribute to political struggle.

Audience Award National Competition [SPA Autores + ESFAA + Ibershorts]

VERMELHOS DO ASFALTO, João Niza Ribeiro

EXPERIMENTAL COMPETITION

Best Film [Centro de Arte Oliva]

MORGENKREIS, Basma Alsharif

Jury Statement: For its fearless investigation into the latent forms of violence embedded in the repressive structures of discipline, language, and identity that shape so-called liberal European societies, and for its urgent cinematic dissent in the face of a political climate marked by pre-emptive obedience and historical blindness towards ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Honorable Mention

JIRAPO, Maria Rojas Arias

Jury Statement: For its political audacity and cinematic resourcefulness in confronting and resisting the enduring histories of ecological imperialism and colonial expansion.

TAKE ONE! COMPETITION

Best Film [Showreel + IPDJ]

QUELLE SOIF!, Francisco João

Jury Statement: Rigorous, politically conscious and sharp-witted. Through a delicate, sensitive and deeply humane narrative - one that never sacrifices complexity in its quest to tell the full story of three characters’ lives - this film transforms the repair of a simple object into a broader metaphor for empathy and resilience.

Best Director

Clara Vieira from "Onde Nascem os Pirilampos"

Jury Statement: Through the fluidity and precision with which it weaves together the work with the actors, the shots, the lighting and the nocturnal atmosphere to capture the intimacy, desires and anxieties of a group of teenagers, transforming the forest into a space of discovery, suspended between the everyday and the imaginary, the film reveals a mystical and sensitive perspective.

MUSIC VIDEOS COMPETITION
A GAROTA NÃO + JOÃO MOTA (ET TOI MICEL) - TIGRE III by Amigos da Onça

MY GENERATION COMPETITION

Melhor Filme [Auto Bemguiados]

KISS KISS BANG BANG, Ollie Launspach

CURTINHAS COMPETITION

Best Film

O LOBITO, Phillippe Kastner

Best Film Cineciência [Centro de Ciência Viva de Vila do Conde]

REBENTOS A CRESCER, Béatrice Herzig

Honorable Mention M3

DUETO, Léo Brunel

Honorable Mention M6

NA FLORESTA, Antonin Niclass

Honorable Mention M9

O SONHO, Rémi Durin

CURTAS PRO

In Development Award [Croatian Audiovisual Centre + MIDPOINT Institute + Repensar]

SOZINHA DE TODO O SEU SEXO, Alice dos Reis

Jury Statement: Female body being trapped in the duality of scientific analysis and religious mysticism, will never be free. To the project that is looking for the way of challenging the norms and reclaiming power.

Next Cut Award [Pulsar Studios + Festhome]

San Juan, Carmen Ros

Jury Statement: We would like to recognize a project told from a tender and oneiric perspective, a portrayal of an age when even the smallest memories are vividly and quietly shaping the future and the person we are yet to become. Through an intimate and dreamlike approach, the project immerses us in a pivotal night in which sounds and silences intertwine with rituals, human presence and the sea, embracing the beauty and fragility of slow transformation.