Cláudia Varejão was born in Porto and studied at the Creativity and Artistic Creation Program of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in partnership with the German Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin and the São Paulo International Film Academy. She also studied Photography at AR.CO in Lisbon. Cláudia is the author of the short film trilogy Weekend, A Cold Day and Morning Light. Ama-san, a portrait of japa- nese divers, was her feature debut, receiving dozens of awards around the world, followed by In The Dark- ness of the Theater I Take Off My Shoes and Amor Fati. Wolf and Dog, her previous film, premiered at the 79th Venice Film Festival and received the Best Film Award at the Giornate Degli Autori section. Kora, a short documentary film, takes her back to Venice. Cláudia’s films have been selected by and awarded at the most prestigious film festivals, including Locarno, Rotterdam, Visions du Reel, Cinema du Reel, Karlovy Vary, Art of the Real - Lincoln Center, Venice Film Festival, among many others. Alongside her work as a filmmaker, she develops a career as a photographer and has been invited to give classes and workshops at various Film and Art schools. Her work, whether in cinema or photography, documentary or fiction, lives in close proximity to her characters.

Dryelle Andrade is a historian, filmmaker, and educator, originally from Recife, Brazil, and currently based in the Azores. With a degree in History and a master’s candidacy in Social Policies, she works on projects that integrate art, education, and citizenship. She directed and wrote the short film Maracatu Estrela Dalva: The Sound of a Nation (2022), was director of photography for the essay film Permanência (2017) on aging and Alzheimer’s, and is currently developing Territórios Habitados e Imaginados (PARES 2025), a project featuring photography and collage workshops with students. Dryelle is also part of Isto Não É Um Cubo, at Arquipélago – Center for Contemporary Arts.

Eva Pelúcia, born in 2002 is an aspiring film director. She began her studies in Cinema at the School of Arts of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, in Porto, where she worked in various capacities. While frequenting the Undergraduate Program in Cinema she fell in love with different aspects of the audiovisual world, with an emphasis in Art Direction, Production, Characterization, Annotation, Writing and Directing.

Jonathan Uliel Saldanha is a musician, visual artist, sound and scenic creator. His artistic practice unfolds at the intersection of sound, gesture, voice, installation, performance and video, crossing pre-language, otherness and science fiction. An active presence in the Portuguese experimental scene since the late 1990s, Saldanha founded the sound-art collective SOOPA in 1998 and has since worked across a wide range of exploratory ensembles and collaborations. He currently leads the sonic projects HHY & The Macumbas, HHY & The Kampala Unit, and the drum collective Arsenal Mikebe, touring extensively throughout Europe, Africa, and beyond.

Kateryna Kondratieva is a Ukrainian artist currently living in Ponta Delgada, Azores. Educated at the Odesa Art School (2015–2018), her practice explores the dialogue between humans and nature, as well as themes of migration and motherhood. Working primarily with collage and watercolor, she also studies illustration and is an active member of the Urban Sketchers community.

Laís Andrade is a Brazilian-Portuguese filmmaker, screenwriter, visual artist and researcher.
Her work, inspired by migration and autobiography, includes My Ray of Sunshine (2024), recipient of the FUSO festival 2025 (Portugal) and MANIFEST exhibition (France) awards, on colonial slavery, the subject of her doctoral research. She directed Green House (2021), about illegal immigration, as well as Gagne Pain (2021) and Diamante (2023). She co-wrote As if the world had no west (2024),with Mónica de Miranda and Ondjaki.

LealVeileby (António Leal, Lisboa, 1976 and Jesper Veileby, Karlstad, 1985) is a Portuguese-Swedish artist duo based in Malmö, Sweden. They explore themes surrounding queerness and hybridity as well as contemporary perceptions and ideas about reality, using a queer/magic framework for reinterpreting the boundaries of the world – both scientific and political, as dictated by our current form of ”worlding” in the westernized world.

Luisa Borges is a nurse who explores artistic expression through photography, with several exhibitions emerging from her practice. In recent years, she has also pursued short training courses in theatre and cinema, expanding the scope of her creative interests.

Margarida Benevides holds a degree in Nursing, yet her path remains deeply intertwined with the arts through theatre, music, and poetry, pursued via both formal and informal learning. Over the past two years, she has taken part in several Erasmus+ projects across Europe, exploring diverse artistic practices, including video production. Alongside her artistic journey, she continues to work as a freelance nurse with organizations supporting people experiencing addiction, homelessness, and prostitution, such as Associação Novo Dia and UMAR.

Maria Jorge Martins, originally from Porto, has been living and working in the Azores since 2009. She holds a degree in Philosophy and Portuguese Culture from the University of the Azores. In Lisbon, she studied at Ar.Co – Center for Art and Visual Communication, where she trained in drawing, painting, video, sound, and new media as a grantee of the Carmona e Costa Foundation. She later taught in the Cinema/Moving Images course at Ar.Co.

Born on the island of São Miguel, Azores, Mel Paiva is a trans transdisciplinary artist. She holds a degree in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon, and her artistic practice explores themes such as pop culture, religion, rituals, identity, icons, gender issues, love, motherhood, femininity, beauty standards, and nature. Throughout her studies, she worked across media including painting, sculpture, performance, collage, video, and sound. She is currently focusing on writing, music, cinema, theatre, and fashion design.

Rafaella Antunes, originally from Brazil, has been living in the Azores for two years, working as a bartender and yoga teacher. She uses artistic expression to connect with the whole, striving to maintain a harmonious balance between her two worlds through image, collage, and video.

Rita Bolieiro (1996, Ponta Delgada) is a visual artist and media and communications professional. She holds a Master’s degree in Film and Photographic Studies from Leiden University and develops a practice that intertwines photography, writing, theory, and other forms of visual expression. Guided by instinct and close observation, her work reveals a fascination with the Absurd and with the intersections of body and space, exploring the unconscious fusion of the subject—human or otherwise—with the landscape.

Sara Massa was born in São Miguel in 2002. She holds a degree in Multimedia Art from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon. Her multidisciplinary work challenges and questions predefined social norms through a meta-reflexive catharsis, with an ironic and sometimes humorous touch. She uses various experimental media such as video, photography and the appropriation of objects. Sara took part in exhibitions at Arquipélago - Centro de Artes Contemporâneas (2020), GALERIA BRUI (2020), Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa (2024) and GABAS-Galerias Abertas de Belas Artes in (2024). Her short films have been screened at Fuso Insular (2021), Salto Lisboa (2022), Ciclo de Cinema Académico (2024) and Ciclope short film festival (2023). She is currently part of a performance collective called Casal a dias, where they drag real life into artistic practice (literally).

Stephanie Monica is an artist working with Moving Image and Sound. She was born in Brussels in 1997, and lives and works in Lisbon. She studied at ZHdK - Zurich University of the Arts, Ar.Co, Norwich University of the Arts, and the Faculty of Fine Arts from the University of Lisbon. Her work explores themes related to (mis)communication. She is the recipient of the FNAC Novos Talentos award, the Arte Jovem Millennium BCP award, and Balaclava Noir. Her work has been exhibited in festivals such as the Buenos Aires International Film Festival (BUEIFF) and Rota Fest, Olinda (Brazil) and has been shown at the galleries PB27, Carpintarias de São Lázaro, and Zaratan.

Vera Mantero is a choreographer and performer. She started choreographing in 1987 and, since 1991, has become a benchmark of the New Portuguese Dance; presenting her solo and group work all over Europe, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Canada, Singapore, South Korea and the USA. Her work crosses different artistic disciplines and is nationally and internationally recognized. She regularly teaches composition and improvisation in Portugal and abroad. In 1999, she founded the structure O Rumo do Fumo.

Welket Bungué is a transdisciplinary artist of Balanta ethnicity. He is Guinean-Portuguese, born in Guinea-Bissau (Xitole region) in 1988. He lives in Berlin and works globally. He is the co-founder of the production company KUSSA, and holds an undergraduate degree in Theatre - Acting Program of the Department of Theatre from the Lisbon Theatre and Film School (ESTC), and a postgraduate degree in Performance from Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO). His films have been screened at: Berlinale (Germany); American Black Film Festival Miami (USA); Africlap Film Festival, Toulouse (France); Zanzibar International Film Festival (Tanzania); Afrikamera Contemporary Cinema from Africa Film Festival (Berlin); BFI London (Great Britain); Sheffield DocFest (Great Britain), and at IndieLisboa and DocLisboa, both in Portugal.