The eleventh edition of the Montanha Pico Festival ends in the last week of January. More than 80 films, from “Made in Azores” productions to works on mountain culture or scenery, were shown on screens on the island of Pico, in the Azores.

On Tuesday, January 28, the session in the Auditorium of the Whalers’ Museum is a trip around the world, in short films from India to the USA, Italy to Iran, Belgium to Ireland. Stories and images from the mountainous world are presented in the iconic auditorium of the islands’ most visited museum.

The closing night is dedicated to stories produced by Portuguese. On Thursday, January 30, at 9pm, in the Municipal Auditorium of Lajes do Pico, works by Jorge Fajardo, João Gomes, Nuno Escudeiro, and Ana Vilela da Costa hit the big screen in the whaling town.

Ana Vilela da Costa, the director of “Gardunha,” presents her film in person. The actress, creator, and director received a Gulbenkian GDA Scholarship. She received the Sophia Award for Best Secondary Actress in 2020 and the GDA New Talents Cinema Award. “As a creator, I explore boundaries between reality and fiction in an interdisciplinary practice that combines performance and video/sound to address themes such as environmental issues, post-humanism, feminist science fiction, and speculative fiction,” explains Ana Vilela da Costa.

The film “Gardunha” was produced as part of the Advanced Training Course in Film and Television Directing, promoted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Portuguese Catholic University – School of the Arts, and premiered at the Vila do Conde International Short Film Festival. In a remote rural area, a woman on the run has a supernatural encounter surrounded by enigmatic sounds. As she immerses herself in that reality, she is confronted with unexpected phenomena that her rational mind cannot understand. “Gardunha” is part of the closing session of the Montanha Pico Festival 2025 and winter sessions of Cineclube Montanha, a MiratecArts project with the Municipality of Lajes do Pico. The screening is free.

From MiratecArts press release.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks the Luso-American Education Foundation for their support.