When submissions to the 5th Chica Pelega Film Festival closed on FilmFreeway, the selection team was facing 2,249 films from 108 countries. Together they add up to more than 700 hours of screen time: anyone trying to watch it all, without stopping to sleep, would spend almost a full month in front of the screen. It is the second year in a row that the Festival has passed two thousand entries; the 4th edition, in Videira, received 2,393.

The 5th edition takes place in 2027 in Chapecó, Brazil, with an online showcase on Pupilo Play. Its theme, The caboclo and rural inland territories, comes from the memory of the Contestado War, but the numbers show that the question behind it, what it means to live far from the big centers, resonates across the world.

A map that reaches far beyond southern Brazil

Brazil leads with 550 films. Second comes Iran, with 275, followed by India (196), Argentina (100), the United States (81), Spain (80), Mexico (76) and Türkiye (68). Latin America as a whole accounts for 856 entries, almost four in ten.

Alongside better-known film industries came films from countries rarely seen at Brazilian festivals: Angola, Cape Verde, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Namibia, Burundi, Tajikistan and Oman, one film each. Seventy films are co-productions between two or more countries.

Diversity can also be heard. The films speak 89 languages, led by Portuguese (537), English (332), Spanish (316) and Persian (223), as well as Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and Indigenous languages. Eighty films have no dialogue at all. For selected films, the Festival provides Portuguese subtitles, so that school screenings can welcome films from anywhere.

What the films are about

Reading the synopses helps to see the picture that emerges. Family is the most frequent theme, present in about 560 summaries: mothers, grandparents, children who leave and come back. Next come childhood (about 480), memory (340) and women (290). Rivers, the sea and water appear in more than 260 synopses, as do work, traditions and rituals and rural life, each around 240. Grief, war, migration, the climate crisis and Indigenous peoples complete a body of stories about belonging, land, and what is lost and kept between generations.

It is a repertoire in direct dialogue with the caboclo of the Contestado, this edition’s theme, and with the Festival’s own path: it was born in 2021 in Joaçaba to look at a war rarely taught in the region’s own schools.

Shorts, first films and recent work

Most entries are short: 1,973 films run up to 30 minutes, with an average length of around 20 minutes. There are also 176 features longer than 70 minutes. Documentaries account for 568 entries, animations for 371 and experimental films for 434.

Newcomers stand out: 834 entries were declared as the director’s first film, and 848 are student productions. Almost all of the work is recent, with 1,333 films completed in 2026 and 626 in 2025.

Entries by category

  • Traditional Peoples (short): 1,127 films;
  • Traditional Peoples (feature): 279;
  • Childhood on Screen: 407;
  • Student productions: 604;
  • Contestado: 51.

Now, the selection

The films are being watched by the Caboclo Curatorial Committee, made up of caboclo and Indigenous members and scholars of the theme, and by the Childhood on Screen committee. The list of selected films is expected on January 10, 2027 (provisional date) and will be published on the website and social media.

To everyone who trusted their film to Chica Pelega: thank you. Every entry is a window onto a territory, a community and a way of seeing the world.

Filmmakers from Santa Catarina: there is still time

The Santa Catarina and Contestado showcases remain open until December 9, 2026, now through the form on the Festival website, with no FilmFreeway account needed. See who can enter and how it works.

Entries: chicapelega.com.br/en/submit