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MOTELX 2025 (19th Edition) Programme Preview September 9th to 15th — Cinema São Jorge
Portuguese horror takes centre stage at the 19th edition of MOTELX, and a particular emphasis on the female condition: the brand-new Noémia Delgado Award for Remarkable Women in Horror, honouring Gale Anne Hurd as Guest of Honour. In international films, we have plenty of stars like Marion Cotillard, John Malkovich, Paul Rudd, Selton Mello and Jenny Ortega. The horror is coming: September 9th to 15th at Cinema São Jorge.
This Wednesday, 16th july of 2025, was a scary day at Cinema São Jorge. The 19th edition of MOTELX - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival — was unveiled, reinforcing its commitment to the genre with a diverse and exhilarating programme. Over seven days, the festival will bring more than 130 films and 80 screenings to the Portuguese capital, plus an additional three-day Warm-Up event, with venue and dates to be announced shortly.
In 2025, the programme places particular emphasis on themes surrounding the representation of women in cinema. Foremost among these initiatives is the creation of the Noémia Delgado Award for Outstanding Women in Horror, which in its inaugural edition is presented to Gale Anne Hurd, the American producer behind genre-defining classics such as “The Terminator”, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”, “Aliens”, “The Abyss”, “The Relic” and “Armageddon”, among many others that have undeniably shaped our collective consciousness. She is also the founder of Valhalla Entertainment, one of the production companies responsible for the audience phenomenon “The Walking Dead” and all its spin-offs.
This distinction aims both to recover the memory of pioneering women in the entertainment industry – and to celebrate the emerging female talents who are redefining contemporary horror.
Noémia Delgado (1933–2016), a seminal figure in Portuguese New Cinema and horror, began her career editing films by Manoel de Oliveira and Paulo Rocha. Her directorial debut came in 1976 with “Máscaras”, a documentary exploring winter rituals in Trás-os-Montes, created in collaboration with her then-husband Alexandre O’Neill — these traditions had never before been filmed. Delgado also adapted fantastic tales by authors such as Eça de Queirós, Júlio Dinis, and Mário de Sá-Carneiro, among others and was noted for boldly assuming editing and sound responsibilities for her own films, cementing her status as an artist in the truest sense. She is an outstanding figure to represent, in spirit and name, this award honoring the great female creative figures of our universe, which debuts in this 19th edition of MOTELX.
The “The Witches’ Ball” cycle opens the door to the Lost Room to witchcraft, the figure of the pagan sorceress and rebellious woman, and the rural, mystical, and macabre cults she evokes — with a particular focus on the specificity of witches in Portugal. This section centres on folk horror, the subgenre most represented in Portuguese cinema, and includes “O Crime de Aldeia Velha” (1964), by Manuel de Guimarães, based on the true story of a young woman burned alive in the 1930s in Marco de Canaveses, adapted from Bernardo Santareno’s 1959 play of the same name; “Finisterra”, a series by Guilherme Branquinho and Leone Niel produced by Take It Easy for RTP, which draws on the true events of the Baile do Vidigal — a witches’ ritual in Aljezur that ended in bloodshed; and “Alma Viva” (2022), by Cristèle Alves Meira, about a child returning to her village for summer holidays amidst rural settings where ancient witches endure.
Portuguese cinema is further cemented as a key pillar of this year’s programme with feature films in exhibition. Jorge Cramez - known for his previous shorts presented at MOTELX - presents “Shadows” debut horror feature that follows a couple (Victoria Guerra and Pedro Lacerda) in the tranquillity of the countryside tasked with looking after a neighbour’s child, only to encounter bizarre nocturnal events that shake their very sense of reality. Nuno Bernardo’s “The Pianist”, another feature debut, is a psychological thriller exploring grief, technology, and the limits of “forever”: after Ana’s (Teresa Tavares) husband (Miguel Borges) dies, he returns as a cloned version of himself. From Madeira comes “Crendices - Quando o Medo Vem das Crenças”, brought to the Cult Room by 4Litro — the Calheta-based collective famed for their comedic sketches and regional musical hits — presenting a feature rich in comedy, mysticism, and ultra-superstition. Altogether, the national line-up comprises three features, 22 short films, and five special screenings.
From the international sphere come fresh titles from across the globe. The french director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s "The Ice Tower”, recently in competition for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear, offers a reinterpretation of “The Snow Queen”, starring Marion Cotillard. From the United States, Alex Scharfman’s directorial debut “Death of a Unicorn” blends caustic humour and 80s camp, with Jenna Ortega among the lead cast. Also making his feature debut is journalist Mark Anthony Green, whose “Opus” premiered at Sundance and features Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, and Juliette Lewis in a tale of a pop star’s retreat turned inescapable cult. Brazil’s Marco Dutra delivers “Bury Your Dead”, a ghostly journey through a rural Brazil on the brink of apocalypse, straddling the western and cosmic horror genres, with Selton Mello, Marjorie Estiano, and Betty Faria. Other international highlights include Hur Bum-wook’s “Pig that Survived Foot-and-Mouth Disease”, Julia Max’s “The Surrender” (Canada/USA), Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s “A Useful Ghost” (Thailand), which won the Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week, and “Zero”, a US-Senegal co-production by Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot.
The competition for the MOTELX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Short Film 2025 features 12 films in competition. "Here In Aveiro" by Joaquim Pavão, “The Hateful” by João Antunes, “Black Arroio” by Lucas de Lima Silva, “Soul” by Maurício Valentino Borges, “The Composer” by Afonso Lucas and Rodrigo Motty, “The Next Step” by Pedro Batalha, “Beep” by Mauricio Valbuena, “Inclosed” by Jonas Costa, “Parousia” by Kim Lobo, “Islander” by Margarida Saramago, “Resut” by Mafalda Jacob, and “Strangers” by Carolina Afonso. They will compete for the largest monetary prize for short films in Portugal.
Meanwhile, nine Portuguese productions stand out in the Méliès d’argent competition for Best European Short: "Amarelo Banana" by Alexandre Sousa, "Antena" by Duarte Pedroso de Lima, "BeNice" by Tiago "Ramon" Santos, "Pimple" by Fernando Alle, “Dog Alone” by Marta Reis Andrade, “Gardunha” by Ana Marques Vilela da Costa, “Light Was a Break” by Luís Costa, “Sequencial” by Bruno Caetano, and “Yazza” by Francisco Lacerda.
The 19th edition of MOTELX also introduces Suite 13, a new section dedicated to revisiting filmographies that were once dismissed but are now being re-evaluated through the lens of contemporary culture: accelerated, polarised, and enigmatic. In its first year, the spotlight falls on Herschell Gordon Lewis, the “Godfather of Gore”, whose moniker alone suggests provocative metaphors for today’s United States.
SectionX, MOTELX’s haven for underground, experimental, and avant-garde cinema, highlights Austrian filmmaker Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s dystopian trilogy “2551”. Comprising “2551.01 — The Kid”, “2551.02 — The Orgy of the Damned”, and “2551.03 — The End”, this punk, grotesque cinematic saga follows a half-man, half-monkey creature who never removes his mask. Pfaffenbichler describes his genre as “dystopic slapstick”, employing dark humour and depraved violence. The first instalment, subtitled “The Kid”, offers a mischievous nod to Charlie Chaplin.
Returns the MOTELX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Screenplay, the screenplay competition for the most horror type cinema of the country. Competing on this third edition, with a €2,000 prize for the winning screenplay, are six screenplays still seeking production "Babel's Ram" by Francisco Barbosa, "Once Upon a Time in the Apocalypse" by Tiago Pimentel and António Miguel Pereira, “The Lisbon Ripper” by João Ruela Branco and Nuno Martini, “Killing’s in the Wild! (Six Princes and a Pauper)” by António Xavier Rodrigues, “Tarso” by Stephane Oliveira and “A Kind of Absence” by Catarina Araújo.
In terms of events, MOTELX 2025 brings further good news. The new Digital Film Festival will focus on digital audiovisual content across three formats: Short Movies and Mobile, Web Series Pilots, and Videocasts. Organised by Thumb Media, its first edition will take over Cinema São Jorge’s Room 2 on 10 and 11 September. As in previous years, MOTELX continues to host a festival within a festival, promoting and encouraging independent videographic production.
More updates on the 19th edition of MOTELX to follow soon.
In 2025, the programme places particular emphasis on themes surrounding the representation of women in cinema. Foremost among these initiatives is the creation of the Noémia Delgado Award for Outstanding Women in Horror, which in its inaugural edition is presented to Gale Anne Hurd, the American producer behind genre-defining classics such as “The Terminator”, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”, “Aliens”, “The Abyss”, “The Relic” and “Armageddon”, among many others that have undeniably shaped our collective consciousness. She is also the founder of Valhalla Entertainment, one of the production companies responsible for the audience phenomenon “The Walking Dead” and all its spin-offs.
This distinction aims both to recover the memory of pioneering women in the entertainment industry – and to celebrate the emerging female talents who are redefining contemporary horror.
Noémia Delgado (1933–2016), a seminal figure in Portuguese New Cinema and horror, began her career editing films by Manoel de Oliveira and Paulo Rocha. Her directorial debut came in 1976 with “Máscaras”, a documentary exploring winter rituals in Trás-os-Montes, created in collaboration with her then-husband Alexandre O’Neill — these traditions had never before been filmed. Delgado also adapted fantastic tales by authors such as Eça de Queirós, Júlio Dinis, and Mário de Sá-Carneiro, among others and was noted for boldly assuming editing and sound responsibilities for her own films, cementing her status as an artist in the truest sense. She is an outstanding figure to represent, in spirit and name, this award honoring the great female creative figures of our universe, which debuts in this 19th edition of MOTELX.
The “The Witches’ Ball” cycle opens the door to the Lost Room to witchcraft, the figure of the pagan sorceress and rebellious woman, and the rural, mystical, and macabre cults she evokes — with a particular focus on the specificity of witches in Portugal. This section centres on folk horror, the subgenre most represented in Portuguese cinema, and includes “O Crime de Aldeia Velha” (1964), by Manuel de Guimarães, based on the true story of a young woman burned alive in the 1930s in Marco de Canaveses, adapted from Bernardo Santareno’s 1959 play of the same name; “Finisterra”, a series by Guilherme Branquinho and Leone Niel produced by Take It Easy for RTP, which draws on the true events of the Baile do Vidigal — a witches’ ritual in Aljezur that ended in bloodshed; and “Alma Viva” (2022), by Cristèle Alves Meira, about a child returning to her village for summer holidays amidst rural settings where ancient witches endure.
Portuguese cinema is further cemented as a key pillar of this year’s programme with feature films in exhibition. Jorge Cramez - known for his previous shorts presented at MOTELX - presents “Shadows” debut horror feature that follows a couple (Victoria Guerra and Pedro Lacerda) in the tranquillity of the countryside tasked with looking after a neighbour’s child, only to encounter bizarre nocturnal events that shake their very sense of reality. Nuno Bernardo’s “The Pianist”, another feature debut, is a psychological thriller exploring grief, technology, and the limits of “forever”: after Ana’s (Teresa Tavares) husband (Miguel Borges) dies, he returns as a cloned version of himself. From Madeira comes “Crendices - Quando o Medo Vem das Crenças”, brought to the Cult Room by 4Litro — the Calheta-based collective famed for their comedic sketches and regional musical hits — presenting a feature rich in comedy, mysticism, and ultra-superstition. Altogether, the national line-up comprises three features, 22 short films, and five special screenings.
From the international sphere come fresh titles from across the globe. The french director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s "The Ice Tower”, recently in competition for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear, offers a reinterpretation of “The Snow Queen”, starring Marion Cotillard. From the United States, Alex Scharfman’s directorial debut “Death of a Unicorn” blends caustic humour and 80s camp, with Jenna Ortega among the lead cast. Also making his feature debut is journalist Mark Anthony Green, whose “Opus” premiered at Sundance and features Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, and Juliette Lewis in a tale of a pop star’s retreat turned inescapable cult. Brazil’s Marco Dutra delivers “Bury Your Dead”, a ghostly journey through a rural Brazil on the brink of apocalypse, straddling the western and cosmic horror genres, with Selton Mello, Marjorie Estiano, and Betty Faria. Other international highlights include Hur Bum-wook’s “Pig that Survived Foot-and-Mouth Disease”, Julia Max’s “The Surrender” (Canada/USA), Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s “A Useful Ghost” (Thailand), which won the Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week, and “Zero”, a US-Senegal co-production by Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot.
The competition for the MOTELX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Short Film 2025 features 12 films in competition. "Here In Aveiro" by Joaquim Pavão, “The Hateful” by João Antunes, “Black Arroio” by Lucas de Lima Silva, “Soul” by Maurício Valentino Borges, “The Composer” by Afonso Lucas and Rodrigo Motty, “The Next Step” by Pedro Batalha, “Beep” by Mauricio Valbuena, “Inclosed” by Jonas Costa, “Parousia” by Kim Lobo, “Islander” by Margarida Saramago, “Resut” by Mafalda Jacob, and “Strangers” by Carolina Afonso. They will compete for the largest monetary prize for short films in Portugal.
Meanwhile, nine Portuguese productions stand out in the Méliès d’argent competition for Best European Short: "Amarelo Banana" by Alexandre Sousa, "Antena" by Duarte Pedroso de Lima, "BeNice" by Tiago "Ramon" Santos, "Pimple" by Fernando Alle, “Dog Alone” by Marta Reis Andrade, “Gardunha” by Ana Marques Vilela da Costa, “Light Was a Break” by Luís Costa, “Sequencial” by Bruno Caetano, and “Yazza” by Francisco Lacerda.
The 19th edition of MOTELX also introduces Suite 13, a new section dedicated to revisiting filmographies that were once dismissed but are now being re-evaluated through the lens of contemporary culture: accelerated, polarised, and enigmatic. In its first year, the spotlight falls on Herschell Gordon Lewis, the “Godfather of Gore”, whose moniker alone suggests provocative metaphors for today’s United States.
SectionX, MOTELX’s haven for underground, experimental, and avant-garde cinema, highlights Austrian filmmaker Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s dystopian trilogy “2551”. Comprising “2551.01 — The Kid”, “2551.02 — The Orgy of the Damned”, and “2551.03 — The End”, this punk, grotesque cinematic saga follows a half-man, half-monkey creature who never removes his mask. Pfaffenbichler describes his genre as “dystopic slapstick”, employing dark humour and depraved violence. The first instalment, subtitled “The Kid”, offers a mischievous nod to Charlie Chaplin.
Returns the MOTELX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Screenplay, the screenplay competition for the most horror type cinema of the country. Competing on this third edition, with a €2,000 prize for the winning screenplay, are six screenplays still seeking production "Babel's Ram" by Francisco Barbosa, "Once Upon a Time in the Apocalypse" by Tiago Pimentel and António Miguel Pereira, “The Lisbon Ripper” by João Ruela Branco and Nuno Martini, “Killing’s in the Wild! (Six Princes and a Pauper)” by António Xavier Rodrigues, “Tarso” by Stephane Oliveira and “A Kind of Absence” by Catarina Araújo.
In terms of events, MOTELX 2025 brings further good news. The new Digital Film Festival will focus on digital audiovisual content across three formats: Short Movies and Mobile, Web Series Pilots, and Videocasts. Organised by Thumb Media, its first edition will take over Cinema São Jorge’s Room 2 on 10 and 11 September. As in previous years, MOTELX continues to host a festival within a festival, promoting and encouraging independent videographic production.
More updates on the 19th edition of MOTELX to follow soon.