SONICA EKRANO is a documentary film festival dedicated to the music, musicians, sounds and movements at the edges of massification and popularity.

Dedicated solely to “other musics”, SONICA EKRANO allows access to exceptional films portraying artists, sounds, local and global movements, which often slip through the cracks of the wide variety of audiovisual media on offer in our present day - because history is still often created away from the spotlights of the media - in the present as in the past, where these histories sometimes lay dormant for decades until their (re)discovery.

This third edition of the festival continues to provide an opportunity to watch cinematic works which remain (even in an age of digital platforms with on-demand content) hard to access, contributing to an increased audiovisual inclusiveness, striving to present a diversity of geographies and strike a balance between historical perspective and contemporary narratives.

The name SONICA EKRANO, written in Esperanto (meaning “Sound Screen” in English), seeks to reflect both music and cinema as “universal languages”, while also honoring the strong esperantist tradition in the south bank of the Tagus river, particularly in Barreiro, which will host the festival between October 26th and November 04th.

Through the course of 19 sessions, divided between the Castello Lopes cinema in Forum Barreiro and the Cineclube do Barreiro, we’ll present as many feature-length films, all of which made after 2020, over half of them being shown in Portugal for the first time - at least one premiere each day.

2023’s programme allows us to establish some thematic threads: there is a strong emphasis on electronic music (from a historical perspective, with films about the Sound of Cologne in the turn of the century or the surreal career of The KLF; in its contemporary movements, such as Tanzania’s Singeli music or the almost instant rise to fame of those portrayed in ‘American Rapstar’, or even still its very origins, connected to the classical music world - Stockhausen and Pauline Oliveros - or to the Cold War political scenario - such as “The Subharchord”); on the influential german independent rock movement in the 1970’s (aka krautrock, in itself a source of still ongoing inspiration for so much electronic music), with films about Can or one of its lead singers, Damo Suzuki, and the living heritage of Embryo), or even, finally, on the power of music as a means to either build communities (Elephant 6 or Aquarius Records) or to face the hardships surrounding them (Mutant, Sirens). Connections are multiple and open, but the programme as a whole shows, as if still necessary, that music’s features and power are some of the most widespread and far-reaching human achievements.

For the first time, as well, SONICA EKRANO proposes live music shows, a deep listening session and opening and closing parties - all different opportunities to celebrate cinema, music and being together.

Have a look at the programme we prepared for this event, and live it closely, in the right bank of the Tagus.