FEST International Film Festival

About FEST

FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival is a unique celebration and gathering of young filmmakers. FEST is an annual film festival that occurs in Espinho, Portugal.

This year will see its 10th edition, which will take place from the 24th to the 30th of June 2014.

The event is focused on creating a space for up-and-coming filmmakers, to show and promote their work, develop their skills, offer new opportunities, and develop new publics for independent cinema.

The festival is divided into several categories, competitive and non-competitive, with 2 main award categories: Short films by filmmakers up to the age of 30 (Silver Lynx competition); and Features from directors who are on their first or second production, regardless of their age (Golden Lynx competition).

The festival also hosts several non-competitive sections, such as NEXXT, Flavours of the World, Be Kind Rewind and FEST Sound.

The educational section of the festival, FEST - Training Ground, is another unique aspect of the event. It consists on a series of workshops and masterclasses presented by some of the film industry`s biggest names in several technical, artistic and theoretical fields.

FEST – Training Ground covers a large amount of subjects related to filmmaking, making it one of the largest and most complete film forums in existence, attracting more than 400 filmmakers from around the world per year.

The festival has an unquestionable thirst for new visions and perspectives on Film, taking also the next step for these upcoming filmmakers to continue their work in the festival which offers not only a very high quality program, where they can screen their film, a training program to enhance the knowledge, bad also new opportunities can be found here on the FEST – Pitching Forum, where 15 projects will be selected to be presented to a group of financiers, developers and producers, with a development award for the best project, and many opportunities for the other projects presented.

In the FEST – Industry Meetings it is possible for the audience, to have more structured meetings with the some professionals from the film business. It will be possible schedule a meeting with producers, financiers, project developers, to have a one-on-one advice, and feedback on project development in Film, receiving important knowledge on how to further develop their projects or careers.