Galoe’s work unfolds through a gesture that is at once political and poetic, where social realism intersects with a lyrical sensibility that resists the simplification of images and narratives. His films are often rooted in marginal territories — both geographical and symbolic — offering an intimate proximity to the communities he portrays, while maintaining a critical awareness of the structures that shape them.

In Aunque es de Noche (Even Though It’s Night), presented at Curtas Vila do Conde in 2023, Galoe turns his gaze towards La Cañada Real, on the outskirts of Madrid, following the relationship between two young boys at a moment marked by transition and rupture. The imminence of separation — inflected by questions of belonging, displacement, and future — structures a film in which everyday life is imbued with both tension and tenderness.

This territory re-emerges in Ciudad Sin Sueño (Sleepless City), which receives its Portuguese premiere at this year’s festival. Here, Galoe expands his focus to a broader community, constructing a choral portrait that oscillates between the harshness of lived conditions and the persistence of gestures of resilience and imagination. The observational dimension is intertwined with a sensitivity to time and space, where cinema becomes a site of memory and attentive listening.

Since his first feature-length documentary, Frágil equilibrio (Delicate Balance), awarded the Goya for Best Documentary, Galoe has developed a cinematic practice deeply engaged with the contemporary world, probing its fractures and inequalities while preserving the complexity of its subjects.

The retrospective also includes the films Lo-Tech Reality and As Gaivotas Cortam o Céu (Seagulls Cut Through the Sky). This last film is co-directed with Mariana Bártolo, in which the fishing port of Porto serves as the setting for a further exploration of the relationships among space, labour, and identity.

By bringing together the full scope of his work, this retrospective proposes not only an authorial trajectory, but also an invitation to reflect on contemporary modes of representing reality — and on cinema as a space of relation, attention, and resistance.