In 2019, Porto/Post/Doc turned inward — which was, in fact, a way of opening outward: towards the plurality of identities that shape who we are. As a festival, looking inward meant casting light on the diversity within us and projecting it into the darkness of the cinema theatre. We brought to the city all the temporalities of cinema: feature-length, medium and short films; unapologetic documentaries, hybrid fictions, animations, and multiple competitions.

Before opening the doors of the Rivoli and Passos Manuel venues, we paused to reflect — without mirrors — on our own identities and those of our audience. We projected ideas, images, songs, colours, sounds and silences in an edition shaped around identity-related questions: those that have always accompanied us, and those born from the turbulence of our time.

After five years charting new paths — with the peripheries at the centre and the world as our horizon — the festival asked: what defines who we are, individually and collectively? What ties exist between identity politics and the formation of politicised identities? What space belongs to us when we belong nowhere?

These questions permeated the entire 2019 programme, with particular emphasis on the Fórum do Real and a parallel film strand devoted to these themes. On stage, on screen, and in informal gatherings, nine days were offered for encounters with difference — which also meant a renewed encounter with other ways of being in the world.

From 23 November to 1 December 2019, Porto/Post/Doc took over several cultural venues across the city — Teatro Municipal do Porto – Rivoli, Cinema Passos Manuel, Planetário do Porto – Centro de Ciência Viva, Zero Box Lodge, and the School of Arts – UCP — and, for the first time, expanded to Braga, with screenings at Espaço Vita and gnration.