On a Lisbon night where cinema flickered not only on the screen but in the shared breath of those who believe in images as memory, the fourth edition of the Curtas Awards unfolded at Fórum Lisboa—Portugal’s national celebration of the short film, that brief yet infinite form.

There, amid the cadence of applause and the quiet electricity of recognition, Terry Costa—artistic director of MiratecArts and founder of the Azores Fringe Festival—was invited by organizer André Marques to present a partnership that stretches the geography of Portuguese cinema beyond the mainland. Through this collaboration, winning films are granted passage into SHORTS@FRINGE, a program that does not merely exhibit films—it carries them across islands, across audiences, across ways of seeing.

In his remarks, Costa invoked the wider constellation of MiratecArts initiatives rooted in Pico: the Prémio Curta Pico, open to new ideas until July 1; AnimaPIX, devoted to the art of animation; and the Montanha Pico Festival, where mountain culture and landscape become narrative. These are not simply programs—they are invitations to reimagine place as creative force.

“Together we achieve more,” Costa offered from the stage, a phrase that lingered like a refrain. And then, with quiet insistence: “The Azores are also part of Portugal.” It was said more than once that evening—as affirmation, as reminder, as gentle correction to the margins where islands are too often placed. Yet the truth revealed itself plainly: the Azores were not peripheral that night. They were present, inscribed in voice, in lineage, in image.

The evening’s great laureate, Gonçalo Almeida, whose roots trace back to São Miguel, received seven awards for Atom & Void, including Best Director and Best Fiction Short. “It was a night filled with the Azores,” Costa reflected, with a pride that felt both personal and collective. The previous year’s winner, Miguel Andrade—of Faial descent—returned to the stage to present. Among the nominees and participants were figures connected, by blood or by sensibility, to the archipelago: Sofia Frazão in makeup artistry, actor David Medeiros, actress Teresa Madruga, and even Samuel Andrade, a Micaelense projectionist at the Cinemateca Portuguesa and a member of the jury.

One could say, without exaggeration, that this Lisbon ceremony became—if only for a few luminous hours—an Azorean gathering in disguise.

SHORTS@FRINGE, as part of the Azores Fringe Festival, continues this movement of images and identities. Its 14th edition begins on May 15 at the Biblioteca Auditório da Madalena, on Pico Island, before traveling across several islands through June. Like the films it showcases, the festival itself becomes a crossing—of waters, of cultures, of the enduring belief that even the shortest story can carry the weight of a world.

Adapted and translated from Press Release