The duo Raquel Schefer and Rita Morais will be in charge of the artistic programme of Doc’s Kingdom 2025. Their curatorial approach draws on the political and cultural landscape of the Alentejo region, where the Seminar was inaugurated 25 years ago (Serpa) and where it has been unfolding again since 2023 (Odemira). Starting from the process of collectivisation of land and labour that marked the territory, the programme outlines a historical, aesthetic and material cartography of collective cinematographic practices, taking into account issues such as experimentation with horizontal social relations, but also the internal and external contradictions often involved in collective modes of organisation. Based on historical and contemporary collective cinema, the aim is to contribute to a broad debate on the possibility and conditions of militant and committed cinematographic practices in the present.
The seminar will take place from 14th to 19th November 2025 in Odemira.
Raquel Schefer is a filmmaker, a film programmer and an Associate Professor at the Department of Film and Audiovisual of the Sorbonne Nouvelle University. She holds a PhD in Film Studies from that university and a Master’s degree in Documentary Film from the Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires. Schefer was a guest researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is co-editor-in-chief of the journal La Furia Umana and was a programme advisor for the IDFA and Encuentros del otro cine (EDOC) film festivals.
Rita Morais is a filmmaker and film programmer with a MA in Artists’ Film & Moving Image from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has programmed at festivals and institutions as Batalha Film Center or Curtas Vila do Conde IFF and her films have been screened in venues such as Open City Documentary Festival, Berwick Media & Arts Festival, etc. She is artistic director of Miragem — kinematic arts in the landscape, in Pico island, Azores, and member of Laia and Laboratório da Torre, a cooperative for artistic creation and programming and an artist-run lab in Porto.
The open call for programmers received a bunch of great proposals this year. After shortlisting the most interesting applications, six interviews were held. The selection process was carried out by the current co-directors of Doc’s Kingdom (Stefanie Baumann and Catarina Boieiro), together with a committee composed of Gaëlle Boucand (French director and producer at Elinka Films), Sílvia das Fadas (filmmaker and programmer at Cinema Fulgor, resident in Odemira) and Pedro Fernandes Duarte (producer, representing Apordoc), with advice from Rebecca Baron (artist and director, professor at Calarts).