EVENT: BRUNO ABIB (AUGUST 7–20 2026)
Death in August
digital video, color, sound, 16 min, 1.85:1, 2023, Portugal
Created by Bruno Abib
Following a disturbing incident somewhere in Portugal, a group of friends responds in conflicting ways. Some resist the conditions that surround them, while others seek refuge in a virtual realm. Set against the backdrop of a peripheral summer, where protests against police violence intersect with the consolations of videogames, Death in August develops an ambivalent coming-of-age narrative. Bruno Abib’s work complicates familiar genre expectations, tracing how physical and virtual spaces become connected through fear, withdrawal, solidarity, and escape.
Bruno Abib is a Lisbon-based film editor and director. He studied at the Lisbon Theatre and Film School (ESTC) and, since 2017, has edited films shown at La Semaine de la Critique in Cannes, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and CPH:DOX. His films examine violence, alienation, and memory in suburban everyday life, often moving between realism and abstraction through personal archives, internet footage, and videogame imagery. His debut short, The Girl from Berlin (2015), won the Restart Award for Best Film in the Novíssimos section at IndieLisboa. Death in August (2023), which combines live action with videogame sequences to address youth, police violence, grief, and virtual retreat, received a Special Mention from the Schools Jury at IndieLisboa. He is currently completing Live Love Laugh, his third short film, now in post-production.