FUCK THE POLIS | Rita Azevedo Gomes

Description

At Paco Poch Cinema, we want to kick off 2026 with you in the best and most positive way possible: with an original, thought-provoking, creative, and very independent film. Therefore, on January 16th, we will be releasing FUCK THE POLIS, the new film by Portuguese filmmaker Rita Azevedo Gomes, in theaters.

Awarded the Grand Prix at FID Marseille and screened at the Gijón International Film Festival and Zinebi Bilbao, among other national and international festivals, FUCK THE POLIS has received excellent reviews and a warm reception from audiences at the festivals where it has already been admired.

Furthermore, on January 15th and 16th, Rita Azevedo will be in Barcelona and Madrid, respectively, to present her film and speak with the media. She will be accompanied by Paco Poch, the film's distributor in Spain.

SYNOPSIS OF “FUCK THE POLICE”
The announcement of an illness takes Irma to Greece, the realm of clarity, where she embarks on a journey dictated by the god Apollo and guided by his sacred sites. Some twenty years later, Irma retraces that Apollonian path.

Between João Miguel Fernandes Jorge's short story (based on a personal account of that journey) and the director's own experience, FUCK THE POLICE transports us to the Greek islands, amidst voices and seas, stones and dances, winds and temples, ruins and corroded gods... It is a film about a profound connection with the world, about an intense attempt to see what surrounds us, where history coexists with the present, and our memories and subjective feelings dance with the objectivity of the reality that surrounds us.

FUCK THE POLIS stars Bingham Bryant, Mauro Soares, João Sarantopoulos, Maria Novo, Rita Azevedo Gomes, Loukianos Moshonas and Maria Farantouri.

DIRECTOR'S NOTE
"Initially, and quite peacefully, I called this film A CÉU ABERTO (Open Sky). Peace, in this case, consisted precisely of letting go of everything in order to look beyond, to quell a disquiet... But, in the end, FUCK THE POLICE was the title that best suited it, embodying a subtle sense of disillusionment: the world crumbling around, under the indifferent light of whatever God might exist; because the film also deals with Time, the finitude of things, memory.

Between Irma (the person) and Fernandes Jorge's recreation of her in his story A PORTUGUESA (The Portuguese Woman); between memories, impressions, notes, and images captured during successive trips to Greece; between new encounters and old reunions, this film was woven under the open sky, seeking to intertwine Irma's anxieties with our own.

The film's journey followed the path of Irma's 'revisiting' of Greece." But it wasn't a desire for a nostalgic return, but rather for discovery. On that journey, we were spontaneously diverted when the unpredictable seduced us or destiny led us down other shortcuts, revealing other stones to lift from the ground and from the Greek fire, the nascent source, after all, of what is ours.

BIOGRAPHY OF RITA AZEVEDO GOMES
Rita Azevedo Gomes (Lisbon, 1952) is a Portuguese filmmaker with an independent and internationally acclaimed body of work. Since the 1970s, she has been intensely active in the fields of film, theater, opera, and visual arts. Throughout her career, her films have received numerous awards and have been screened at leading festivals worldwide (from Buenos Aires to Hong Kong), and have also enjoyed international distribution. She has been the subject of several retrospectives at prestigious venues such as BAFICI (Buenos Aires), Cineuropa (Santiago de Compostela), the Filmoteca Española de Madrid, and the streaming platform MUBI.

Her filmography includes titles such as A WOMAN'S REVENGE (2010, Rotterdam International Film Festival), CORRESPONDENCES (2016, Locarno Film Festival), THE PORTUGUESE WOMAN (2018, Berlinale), and MACABRE DANCES, SKELETONS AND OTHER FANTASIES (2019, Special Mention at FID Marseille), among others. She has collaborated with filmmakers such as Manoel de Oliveira, Werner Schroeter, and Valeria Sarmiento, and was a member of the Portuguese Cinematheque from 1993 to 2022.

Press Screenings and Interviews for "Fuck the Cops" in Barcelona and Madrid:

BARCELONA
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14
8:00 PM SCREENING AT CINEMES GIRONA (GIRONA, 175) FOR THE PUBLIC, GUESTS, AND PRESS. WITH RITA AZEVEDO GOMES IN ATTENDANCE.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 15
11:00 AM INTERVIEWS WITH RITA AZEVEDO GOMES AT THE ATENEU DE BARCELONA (CANUDA, 6).

MADRID
FRIDAY, JANUARY 16
11:00 AM PRESS SCREENING AT THE ATENEO DE MADRID (CALLE DEL PRADO, 21).

12:30 PM MEET-AND-MEET WITH RITA AZEVEDO GOMES AT THE ATENEO DE MADRID.