The documentary Derek vs Derek, by director James Dawson, won CineEco 2026’s Environment Grand Prize in the international feature competition. The 32nd edition of the Serra da Estrela International Environmental Film Festival, in Seia, handed out the prizes on Saturday at the Casa Municipal da Cultura, and drew more than 3,000 spectators, 1,120 students from local schools and surrounding areas, and 45 filmmakers from 15 countries.
The film is set in Devon, United Kingdom, and follows the relationship between two neighbours who share the same name: the dairy producer Derek Banbury, horrified by the state of the farm next door, once productive, and Derek Gow, a former cattle breeder whom the press calls the “renaturalization rebel”, determined to turn his land into a refuge for nature. The jury notes that, “in a context of evident political and cultural polarization, it is difficult to imagine points of convergence”, and that the search for solutions to ecological problems remains hostage to resistance to change, the difficulty in establishing dialogue, and the lack of political will. The honorable mention went to The System, by Joris Postema (Netherlands).
In the Portuguese-language feature competition, the Camacho Costa Award went to Rua do Pescador n.º 6, by Brazilian filmmaker Bárbara Paz, a black-and-white documentary about the floods that hit Rio Grande do Sul in 2024 and left more than 600,000 people homeless in the Porto Alegre region. The Environmental Anthropology Award distinguished Iron Winter, by Australian Kasimir Burgess, which follows the young Batbold in the attempt to protect more than a thousand horses during the most deadly winter on record in a remote Mongolian valley.
In the short and medium-length categories, the international prize went to 1,5 y más, by Spanish Miguel Dorado, and the Portuguese-language prize to Floresta do Fim do Mundo, by Denilson Baniwa and Felipe M. Bragança. The Environmental Education Award honored the Brazilian documentary Guerreiros Plantados, by José Carbonel and Rui Mendonça, and in the Regional Panorama competition Maços e Martelos, by Tiago Cerveira, about an ancestral gesture that still echoes in the interior mountain ranges of the country. Among the special prizes, the Water Value Award went to Black Water, by Natxo Leuza, and the Youth Award to La Fjella Leve, by Håvard Bustnes.
This year, the festival received 410 submissions to the official selection and screened more than 100 films from 34 countries, 86 of which were in competition. The 33rd edition is already scheduled for October 8 to 16, 2027, and until then CineEco will continue to travel across the country and the islands with its usual extensions.
