The awards for the different categories in competition at this year's edition of Curtas Vila do Conde were presented on Saturday, July 19th. The selections were made by the various juries of the sections and by votes from the festival attendees.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Grand Prix [DCN Beers]

ALIȘVERIȘ, Vasile Todinc

Juri Statement: Following the unstoppable journey of his character to weigh and sell her precious ponytail in order to pay her rent, the film twists the social movie genre into a playful portrait of a city invaded by wild capitalism. Framing still lives and advertisement billboards, and with a brilliant use of colorful neon light, shadows and camera surveillance footage, the ability of the filmmaker to mix mediums and forms struck us. For its critical and accurate vision on our contemporary world, its funny tone on a dramatic situation and its promising filmmaking.

Best Animation [ESMAD / P. PORTO]

WORLD AT STAKE, Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein

Juri Statement: Three sporting events become the stage for a playful yet disturbing reflection on the state of a world quietly drowning against the backdrop of passive spectatorship. The filmmakers once again prove their mastery in manipulating video games – confronting the audience, with precision and wit, with what’s at stake. Using conceptual clarity and dark humour, the film reframes the spectacle of sport into a sharp metaphor for the system we live in.

Best Documentary [ESMAD / P. PORTO]

BEING JOHN SMITH, John Smith

Juri Statement: This portrait of the artist as an old, increasingly left-leaning, man, deftly collapses the personal and the political into a humane, intuitive and sincere piece of work. With characteristic dry humour and self-deprecating wit, the filmmaker elegantly weaves the crisis of the present into an excavation of his own past. Crucially, the film questions the role of the artist in the face of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and a collapsing world.

Best Fiction [ESMAD / P. PORTO]

WHAT MARY DIDN’T KNOW, Konstantina Kotzamani

Juri Statement: Capturing the emotional vulnerability of teenage desire with remarkable assurance, this film portrays the intensity of first love and heartbreak with both depth and tenderness. Visually rich and emotionally layered, it offers an unapologetically romantic gaze at youth, family, and carefree moments of longing, in which language proves no obstacle to connection – all wrapped in stunning imagery, playful details, and the best cocktail names in cinema.

Audience Award [Fricon]

COMO SI LA TIERRA SE LAS HUBIERA TRAGADO, Natalia León

European Film Awards Candidate 2026

SOL MENOR, André Silva Santos

PORTUGUESE COMPETITION

Best Film [Portuguese School of Arts, Universidade Católica do Porto + Pulsar Studios + TV Cine + Festhome]

SOL MENOR, André Silva Santos

Juri Statement: Through quiet observation and luminous storytelling, the filmmaker delivers a film of rare, understated sensitivity, crafting a narrative that gently illuminates the spaces between grief and the fragility and complexity of familial connections. A tender, thoroughly thoughtful film that shimmers with details, impressions and small, intangible tensions – its careful craftsmanship, well-rounded universe and restrained yet expressive direction announce a compelling new voice in Portuguese cinema.

Audience Award [SPA - Portuguese Society of Authors]

BECAUSE TODAY IS SATURDAY, Alice Eça Guimarães

EXPERIMENTAL COMPETITION

Best Film [Centro de Arte Oliva]

DARIA’S NIGHT FLOWERS, Maryam Tafakory

Juri Statement: The jury has decided to award the Best Film of the Experimental Competition prize to a work that uniquely stitches together poetry, silence, fragments, and multiple layers of images to explore the feminine universe within a space of struggle and resistance. Through a sharp political and cultural critique, the film breaks traditional narrative conventions, using absence as a means of contestation and transformation, revealing tensions between tradition and oppression.

TAKE ONE! COMPETITION

Best Film [Showreel + IPDJ + Restart]

MAN, Fábio Zilbermann Iuchno

Juri Statement: A film that takes us inside the walls of a prison while opening windows into the stories of men who reflect on human fragility and the search for redemption. Through a participatory documentary process, it gives voice and power to the men to write their own narratives, looking at their scars without judgment. ""Man" is also a powerful reminder that cinema can be a weapon to bring us closer together in times of conflict, building bridges where there were once only walls.

Best Director

DANIELA TIETZEN, LUANA RODRIGUES, ADRIANA ANDRADE for BURSTING AT THE SEAMS

Juri Statement: For the honesty and authenticity in portraying the journey of growing up and becoming a woman, and the process of embracing femininity. For a creative direction that evokes physical sensations in the audience through the use of textile materials. The use of different techniques for the different parts of the narrative highlights the various feelings inherent in the experience of growing as a woman.

MUSIC VIDEOS COMPETITION

Best Film [Louie Louie]

MEMÓRIA DE PEIXE - GOOD MORNING by Miguel Nicolau

Juri Statement: A video that is outside the box and fits perfectly into everyone's consciousness.

MY GENERATION COMPETITION

Best Film [Auto Bemguiados]

HOME SWEET HOME, Tiffany Deleuze


COMPETIÇÃO CURTINHAS

Best Film [Ativo Kids]

AMEN, Orphee Coutier, Bettina Demarty, Kimié Maingonnat, Laurène Perego, Louise Poulain, Avril Zundel

Honorable Mention

Bobel’s Kitchen, Fiona Roland

Honorable Mention

Homework, Nacho Arjona

Honorable Mention

The Drifting Guitar, Sophie Roze