FEMA – Festival de La Rochelle Cinéma paid tribute to Regina Pessoa and Abi Feijó, and dedicated a session to six short films by Portuguese women directors.
Portuguese animation cinema had a prominent place in the programme of the 54th edition of the La Rochelle Cinéma Festival (FEMA), one of the oldest film festivals in France. True to its non-competitive philosophy, the festival, which ran from 26 June to 4 July 2026, dedicated a double tribute to Portuguese animation: a homage to two of its founding figures and a showcase of the new generation of women directors. Both initiatives featured films from the catalogue of Agência da Curta Metragem.
Retrospective dedicated to Regina Pessoa and Abi Feijó
The first strand of the programme was a retrospective of the two directors' work, organised in partnership with Instituto Camões and Nef Animation.
Feijó founded the studios Filmógrafo and Ciclope Filmes, produced Regina Pessoa's major films, and served as president of ASIFA (Associação Internacional de Cinema de Animação). In 2006, Regina Pessoa became the first Portuguese director to win the Cristal for Best Short Film at Annecy, with "História Trágica com Final Feliz".
According to Xavier Kawa-Topor, managing director of Nef Animation, the two directors' films have won more than 100 festival awards together – a work that, in his words, "established Portuguese animation's place on the world animation stage".
At La Rochelle the audience had the opportunity to revisit on the big screen works such as: Tragic Story With Happy Ending (2005), Kali, The Little Vampire (2012) and Uncle Thomas, Accounting For The Days (2019), by Regina Pessoa; Os Salteadores (1993) and Fado Lusitano (1995), by Abi Feijó; Our Lady Of The Apresentation (2016), co-directed by Abi Feijó, Alice Guimarães, Daniela Duarte and Laura Gonçalves.
A new generation of women directors
Alongside the retrospective, FEMA, in collaboration with Nef Animation and the Bergamo Film Meeting, dedicated a session to the new wave of Portuguese women directors, featuring six short films from the Agência's catalogue:
- Percebes, by Alexandra Ramires and Laura Gonçalves — in 2024, the second Cristal for Best Short Film won at Annecy by a Portuguese film, after Regina Pessoa in 2006;
- Could Soup, by Marta Monteiro;
- The Garbage Man, by Laura Gonçalves;
- The Pink Jacket, by Mónica Santos;
- Because today is saturday, by Alice Eça Guimarães;
- Dog Alone, by Marta Reis Andrade.
To find out more about the international journey of each of these works, or to consult their technical details, visit the Films section on our website.
