PITCH YOUR SHORT!

Training & Pitch

Call for Applications

Knowing how to make a good pitch is crucial in the film industry, because a strong pitch can determine whether your project gets funded, produced, or even noticed.

You often will have only a few minutes to capture interest of potential producers, investors, and programmers. A compelling, concise, and well-delivered pitch could really make a difference.

On occasion of the 12th edition of Olhares do Mediterrâneo – Women’s Film Festival, to take place in Lisbon between October and November, we organise the first edition of PITCH YOUR SHORT! Training & Pitch with the mentorship of experienced producers Andreia Nunes, from Portugal, and Ena Rahelić, from Croatia.

Check their bios Bio Andreia Nunes and Bio Ena Rahelić

Participants in this workshop will have access to online and face-to-face personalized training before they pitch their short film to an industry audience.

For whom?
Women filmmakers from Portugal and Mediterranean countries who are working on their first or second short film.

What kind of films?
Fiction and documentary projects at an early stage of development.

When?
• Online training between September and October (to be scheduled with the mentors)
• In person training with the mentors on October 30, in Lisbon
• Presentation to an audience of film industry professionals on October 31, in Lisbon

How much does it cost?
The workshop is free of charge. Participants will have to cover travel, accommodation, and any other expenses related to the attendance of the activity in Lisbon on October 30 and 31. In person attendance is mandatory.

What language?
The workshop (training and industry presentation) will be in English.

How to apply?
The number of participants is limited to 8 persons. To apply please send the following elements to festival@olharesdomediterraneo.org, specifying in the subject of your email “Application for Pitch Your Short!”. 

• CV (1 page maximum)
• Synopsis (1 page maximum)
• Logline (500 characters)
• Directorial concept (1 page maximum)
• Target audience
• Treatment
• Mood board

Is there an Award?
Yes! The best pitch will receive the MUTIM Award, with free participation in all the training activities organised by MUTIM for one year. MUTIM is the Portuguese Association of Women Workers in Moving Images.

Incomplete submissions will be ignored.
The deadline for applications is August 31.

Important dates

• August 31th: Deadline for applications
• September 10th: Selection notification
• September/October: Online training
• October 30th: In person training with the mentors in Lisbon
• October 31th: Pitch to an audience of film industry professionals, in Lisbon

Contact
festival@olharesdomediterraneo.org

* you are a woman filmmaker (director, producer, DOP, screenwriter, editor)…
* you are from or work in a Mediterranean country or Portugal…
* you have a film (fiction, documentary, animation, experimental) made in 2023, 2024 or 2025…
* you want to be part of the sweetest and coolest film festival in Lisbon…

… send us your film!

The call for entries is open until April 15.

Check the Regulations and the submission form 

We are officially on a countdown 🙂
Check our programme for the whole Festival HERE

The 11th edition of Olhares do Mediterrâneo – Women’s Film Festival  will take place from  October 31th to November 7th, at Cinema São Jorge, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Casa do Comum and Goethe Institut.

But before, If you are in Lisbon, come to our  WARM UP !

THU 17 OCT | 7pm | Terraço do GRAAL, Lisboa SOLD OUT 
SCREENING of PALESTINIAN SHORTS
Followed by an informal debate with online presence of some directors

NEW DATES
THU 24 OCT | 7pm | Terraço do GRAAL, Lisboa
Free attendance, inscribe HERE

SHASHAT: VOICES FROM BEFORE THE RUBBLES 

 Shashat Woman Cinema is the only Palestinian women’s cinema organisation working on the ground in the Occupied Territories. Between 2011 and 2022 it provided training to young women filmmakers and produced 24 short-films. Some of these women have been wounded or killed in the 2023-2024 attacks on Gaza, some have lost members of their families. Shashat’s offices and equipment have been destroyed. In this small retrospective of Shashat’s films, programmed in collaboration with its director, Alia Arasoughly, we honour these women and their work. A fundraiser is organised to help Shashat to continue its work.

We’ll screen these shorts
Silk Thread > Walaa Saada | Gaza | Doc | 2019 | 14’
If They Take it! > Liali Kilani | Nablus | Doc | 2012 | 14’
Sard  > Zeina Ramadan | Gaza | Doc/Anim | 2019 | 8’
I Wish I Weren’t Palestinian > Feda Naser | Hebron | Doc | 2019 | 16’
The Ghoul > Ala Dasoki | Gaza | Fic | 2019 | 17’
A Very Hot Summer… > Areej Abu Eid | Gaza | Doc | 2016 |17’

More info on Shashat
https://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/AliaArasoughly/index.html – “Shashat Woman Cinema: the collective memory of 12 years of women filmmakers in the Gaza Strip
https://www.wmm.com/sponsored-organizations/shashat-woman-cinema

Free entry
Films subtitled in English
There will be a small buffet and we’ll be all invited to contribute to Shashat
GRAAL
Rua Luciano Cordeiro, nº 24, 6º A

OCT 24 > NOV 10 | Casa do Comum, Lisboa
VISUAL ARTS PROGRAMME
Fragments of the Mediterranean
Opening October 24

FRAGMENTS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

Curated by Alexia Alexandropoulou 

The program Fragments of the Mediterranean conjures a diverse series of imagined futures, weaving together the forces of mythology, metamorphosis, and transformation to address critical questions about the female condition in the Mediterranean region. Inspired by the work of historian Fernand Braudel, it reflects on the romanticised view of the Mediterranean as a gentle, sun-soaked place where cultures once harmoniously coexisted. The works challenge this idyllic narrative, confronting the region’s turbulent history, complex cultural intersections, and the rigid gender structures that persist.

At the heart of this project lies a legend: a woman in absolute despair, transformed into a monstrous underwater creature, yet preserving her essence. Through this transformation, she is reborn, transcending her initial condition. This myth of life, death, and transformation echoes the exhibition’s thematic core: metamorphosis, fluidity, and the rejection of entrenched, inaccessible norms in favour of a future that is alive, adaptive, and transformative.

Free entry

FRI OCT 25 | 6.30pm | Sala do Âmbito Cultural do Corte Inglês, 6th floor
CONFERENCE (in Portuguese)

WOMEN in CINEMA in PORTUGAL

What is it like to be a woman film director in Portugal? Women have a very significant presence in Portuguese cinema and, in recent years, the number and importance of national and international awards won by women has grown significantly. However, according to the study “The Status of Women in the Film and Audiovisual Sectors in Portugal”, carried out by MUTIM (Women Workers in Moving Images), women working in the film and audiovisual sector in Portugal continue to earn less than their male colleagues, hold fewer managerial positions and face more obstacles to career progression.

With Claudia Clemente (director), Margarida Gil (director)
Moderated by Rita Bénis (MUTIM)

Free Entry upon registration, HERE 

TER 29 OUT | 21h30 | SHORTCUTZ #456 @COSSOUL 
Cossoul, Rua Nova da Piedade, n.º 66, Lisboa (Mercês) 
Entrada livre

SHORTCURZ DE OLHARES

In this #456 session of SHORTCUTZ,, you can get to know all about our 11º edition and have a sneak preview of

CHASING THE SUN: EL SHATT
Ana Bilankov | HR, EG, DE | Doc | 2023 | 19’
Old pictures and film fragments bring to life an unknown history of migration in the Mediterranean.

Integrado numa parceria criada com a Galeria Monumental,
vamos exibir  VIA SAN CIPRIANO , de Lea Schlude, seguido de conversa.
O filme ganhou o Prémio do Júri de Melhor Longa, na 6ª edição do Festival

As part of the partnership with Galeria Monumental, in Lisbon,
we will screen SAN CIPRIANO ROAD, by Lea Schlude,
followed by an informal conversation. 
The film won the Best Feature Jury Award at the 6th Edition of the Festival

VIA SAN CIPRIANO | SAN CIPRIANO ROAD
Lea Schlude (Itália)
Itália, Alemanha | doc | 2019 | 67’

Num dia de Verão, a realizadora visita a sua avó Emilia e os três irmãos desta, na casa de família, em Roma. Após a morte dos seus respectivos parceiros, os quatro irmãos ficaram sozinhos uns com os outros: um filme sobre o envelhecimento, a solidão e sobre viver a vida com gosto.

One summer’s day, the filmmaker visits her grandmother Emilia and her three siblings in their house in Rome. As their partners have passed away, the four are left alone with each other: A film about aging, solitude and living life with gusto.

+ INFO e fotos

Entrada livre, na medida dos lugares disponíveis
Com legendas em português (havendo a possibilidade de ser em inglês se todos concordarem)

Free entry, within the limit of the available seats
Portuguese subtitles or English, if everybody agrees 

MARCH 18 | 7pm | TERRAÇO DO GRAAL
LET’S SEE A MOVIE AND TALK ABOUT IT

In a partnership with Frames of Palestine (Cinelab/IFILNOVA/FCSH),  Associação Graal and Galeria Monumental, we screen AIDA RETURNS, by Carol Mansour, with a light meal and an informal exchange after the screening
Free entry, but please register your interest HERE

AIDA RETURNS
Carol Mansour
Palestina | Doc | 2023 | 76’
Subtitled in Brazilian Portuguese

Aida was born March 18, 1927, in Yafa, Palestine.  On March 18, 2024, join Aida as she defies all obstacles and returns to her homeland. To celebrate her birthday, this film will be screened in Lisboa, Barcelona, Córdoba, Madrid, Beirute, Cairo, Londres, Paris e Toronto.

This film is a poignant, sometimes sad, sometimes painful, sometimes humorous, often absurd story of a multiple journey: the journey of loss as the director’s mother Aida struggled with losing herself to Alzheimer’s disease, but finding solace in her repeated “returning” to the Yafa and Palestine of her youth; the journey of the loss of a parent; and the ultimate return journey back to Yafa where Aida would finally find rest and be herself once more. 

Close to four years after Aida’s passing away, the director’s friend and colleague Tanya who lives in Jerusalem came to visit Beirut. When she heard about Aida’s wishes and yearning for Yafa, Tanya suggested that she herself carries the ashes back. The film accompanies director Carol Mansour as she engineers a way to return her mother to Yafa in search of eternal rest and peace for her. A return that is aided by an unlikely set of friends and strangers all coming together to facilitate what should have been a simple journey. This journey is at the same time very private and personal, while resonating with hundreds of thousands of Alzheimer’s sufferers and their families as well as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees awaiting their return home.

This film is a tribute to the lost past of the director’s family, an attempt to restore part of both an individual and a collective memory, and a poetic nod and affirmation to all those exiled Palestinians forbidden from returning to their hometowns, even after death.

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CAROL MANSOUR is an independent documentary film maker with over 25 years in documentary production who has achieved international recognition and honor for her films, with over seventy worldwide film festival screenings and official selections worldwide. Her films have won numerous prestigious awards.
Carol’s work reflects her concern for human rights and social justice, covering issues such as migrant workers, refugees, environmental issues, mental health, rights of the disabled, war and memory, right to health, and child labor.
Carol is Lebanese/ Canadian of Palestinian origin.

___________________________
Terraço do Graal
Rua Luciano Cordeiro 24, 6ºA, Lisboa
Free entry, but please register your interest HERE
Food is also free but we appreciate a donation 

Screening organized by Olhares do Mediterrâneo (CRIA), colectivo Frames of Palestine (Cinelab/IFILNOVA/FCSH), Galeria Monumental and Associação Graal.

For the second year in a row, the film festival Olhares do Mediterrâneo – Cinema no Feminino will screen a special selection of its films in VILA REAL, at the municipal theater (March, 16-17) and at the University (UTAD) (March, 18-19)

More info