LusOFest Short Film Day 2025 "Now... or never!"

LUSOFEST SHORT FILM DAY
‘NOW… OR NEVER!’

Sun, 21 December 2025, 4 p.m. (doors open at 3:30 p.m.), Digital Retro Park, OF
Shorts, Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, ov w/ subtitles, ~100 min´

Free admission

English

‘Now or never’ as opposed to our often preferred ‘yes, right away,’ ‘soon,’ ‘when the opportunity arises’ or ‘sometime’ crossed our minds when we founded LusOFest last year. At that time, we were inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. We felt a similar impulse this year when we saw that 21 December, the shortest day of the year, Short Film Day, falls on a Sunday this year. Surely, we should do something about that, right?

This year’s motto is ‘Now!’. As mentioned above, we have taken this as a call to action and an opportunity to present you with an even wider selection of our competition entries. We are using it programmatically to give you a little preview of LusOFest, which will be presenting short and feature films from the Portuguese-speaking world in Offenbach from 20 to 25 January 2026. As is customary for us, entries from Lusophonia will be screened alongside short films from the Rhine-Main region. Some of them also pick up on our own festival motto, ‘Be Water, my Friend’.

We invite you to spend this year’s Short Film Day with us at Digital Retro Park in Offenbach, where you can enjoy great short films surrounded by consoles and retro computers that you can try out after the screening. Admission to the screening is free, but we welcome donations on site and advance registration via Eventbrite or the Facebook event.

The nationwide events for Short Film Day are coordinated by AG Kurzfilm. This screening is made possible thanks to the generous support of Xerox Exotique, Soziale Plastik e. V. (Waggon im Exil) and Digital Retro Park.

16:00 – Block 1: (Fiction I & Animation I)

»Film Festival« (Festival de Cinema), Jussara Locatelli, Melo Viana, Brazil 2025, 12’
»Aurora« Bruna Lessa, Brazil 2025, 19’
»Prayer« Sofia Geweiler, Portugal 2025, 14’
»Silver Salts« (Sais de Prata) Filipe Abranches, Portugal 2025, 10’
»Octopus« (Polvo) Catarina Sobral, Portugal 2022, 8’

Click here to see more details!

‘Film Festival’ (Festival de Cinema) tells the touching story of how a group of children from the community organise a film festival as part of a project. In the film ‘Aurora’, the young protagonist comes to terms with the absence of her missing father, a miner. ‘Prayer’ is set in a Lisbon techno club where guest worker Abdul works while his wife gives birth to their child in his absence. The animated film ‘Silver Salts’ (Sais de Prata) combines the fascination of analogue photography with family memories, and ‘Octopus’ (Polvo) focuses on a stranger who looks different from his fellow human beings and does not speak their language.

17:00 – Block 2: (Documentary I)

»Christaland« Theresa Weisheit, Germany 2025, 14’
»We are still People« (Ainda Somos Gente) Simão Valador Faria, Portugal 2025, 19’
»Sediment on the Seafloor« Laureen Laser, Germany 2025, 6’

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‘Christaland’ documents a region in the western Algarve that is populated almost exclusively by Central European emigrants searching for meaning and truth. In ‘We are still People’ (Ainda Somos Gente), young people explore a facility that offers day care. ‘Sediment on the Seafloor’ deals with manganese nodules from the Pacific deep sea and moves at the interface between documentary and experimental film.

17:45 – Block 3: (Experimental I)

»Snail Shell« (Caracóis) Nestor Jr, Brazil 2025, 4’
»After the Flag« (Después de la bandera), Carlos Martínez-Peñalver Mas, Spain 2018, 8’
»Sulfur« (Enxofre) Karen Akerman, Miguel Seabra Lopes, Brazil/Portugal 2024, 14’
»Dark Sienna« Juan Lesta, Spain 2020, 4’

Click here to see more details!

Every shell, every armour, offers protection, but can also hold us captive. The experimental Super 8 film ‘Snail Shell’ (Caracóis) shows ways to find oneself. ‘After the Flag’ (Después de la bandera) is an experimental comedy about the process of gentrification, in which those affected are blamed for their own dissatisfaction. The experimental film ‘Sulfur’ (Enxofre) was shot in Cape Verde, which is known for its volcanic sulphur caves of great scenic interest. ‘Dark Sienna’ is an immersive and soothing music video for a piece by the Eno brothers.

We will show the programme in three blocks with short breaks and brief Q&As. Coming and going (while being considerate of the other viewers) between blocks or films is perfectly fine.