MOTELX 2026 Award Winners: NO REST FOR THE WICKED And MANCAVE win Best European films, IT'S CHICO TIME! wins Best Portuguese Short

The twentieth edition of this year's MOTELX film festival is drawing to a close today. The award winners were announced yesterday, so it is time for a bit of catch up.

The Méliès d’argent Awards for the best European short film and feature film went to Fredrik S. Hana's Mancave and Kasper Kalie's No Rest For The Wicked respectively. Locally, It's Chico Time!, by João Severo and Rafael Sá Carneiro, won the MOTELX Award for Best Portuguese Horror Short Film. The audice award went to Argentine thriller Gunman, from Cris Tapia Marchiori.

Congrats to all the winners. They are featured in the gallery below.

MOTELX 20 Years | (20th Edition)

Winners of MOTELX 2026 | Awards

“It's Chico Time!”, by João Severo and Rafael Sá Carneiro, won the MOTELX Award for Best Portuguese Horror Short Film, and “Consumido”, by [carrozo], received an Honorable Mention. The Méliès d’argent Award for Best European Short Film went to “Mancave”, by Norwegian director Fredrik S. Hana. “No Rest for the Wicked”, by Danish director Kasper Kalle, was honored with the Méliès d’argent Award for Best European Feature Film. As for the MOTELX Award for Best Portuguese Horror Screenplay, it went to Miguel Monteiro Rico for “Hóspede”, and there was also an Honorable Mention for “A Ostra”, by Pedro Garrido. “Lexi”, a Spanish-produced film directed by Portuguese filmmaker Bruno Simões, won the Lobo Mau Award. And the Audience Award went to “Gunman”, by Argentine director Cris Tapia Marchiori.

Another MOTELX is drawing to a close. And this one was truly special, driven by the celebration of the festival’s 20th anniversary. The longest edition ever, spanning 11 days at Cinema São Jorge and Cinemateca Portuguesa, once again celebrated horror in all its many forms and guises, both inside and outside the cinema theatres. As the festival comes to an end, it is time to announce the Winners of the 20th edition. Alongside the awards, we are also pleased to announce next year’s dates: horror will return from 7 to 13 September 2027.

IT'S NOT OVER YET

There are still a few surprises in store for MOTELX’s 20th anniversary. Tomorrow, Sunday, September 13, highlights include the MOTELX–FilmTwist Surprise Screening (9:15 p.m.), as well as “Colony” by Yeon Sang-ho (4:00 p.m.) and “Pinocchio: Unstrung” by Rhys Frake-Waterfield (11:45 p.m.).

MOTELX AWARD – Best Portuguese Horror Short Film 2026

The MOTELX Award – Best Portuguese Horror Short Film 2026, the festival’s largest cash prize for a Portuguese short film (€5,000), goes to “It's Chico Time!”, by João Severo and Rafael Sá Carneiro. The film stood out in the festival’s most prominent competitive section, which featured 10 films. The jury, comprising programmer Fernando Vasquez, journalist and programmer José Santiago, and journalist and author Sandra Henriques, praised the film’s “ambition and maturity”, describing it as “guides us through a voyage into a dark past which often appears disguised as an alternative reality”.

The jury also awarded an Honourable Mention to “Consumido”, by [carrozo], for its “humor and aesthetic care, paired with a narrative economy that subverts the figure of predator and prey”.

The same jury awarded the Méliès d’argent Award – Best European Short Film 2026 to “Mancave” (Norway), directed by Fredrik S. Hana. Among the 19 films in competition, the jury singled out “a film that depicts a fiction uncomfortably close to reality, in which we follow the claustrophobic journey of the protagonist searching for answers regarding their significant-other’s absence”

MÉLIÈS D’ARGENT AWARD – Best European Feature Film 2026

The Méliès d’Argent Award – Best European Feature Film 2026 went to “No Rest for the Wicked” (Denmark), directed by Kasper Kalle. The jury, comprising journalist and music promoter Isilda Sanches, filmmaker Leone Niel, and cultural director and columnist Teresa Nicolau, praised a film that “combines desire, religion, repression, beauty, love and death with rare elegance”.

MOTELX AWARD – Best Portuguese Horror Screenplay 2026

As far as screenwriting is concerned, the jury—composed of Catarina Araújo (screenwriter), Gonçalo Teles (screenwriter, producer, and director), and Rita Benis (screenwriter)—awarded Miguel Monteiro Rico’s “Hóspede” the MOTELX Award – Best Portuguese Horror Screenplay, “for the confident way it develops the pacing and narrative progression, as well as for its unique and unsettling take on body horror.” The jury also decided to award an Honorable Mention to “A Ostra”, by Pedro Garrido, praising the “richness of the dialogue and the power of the descriptions”.

BIG BAD WOLF AWARD

The Big Bad Wolf jury, made up of three young members of Passa Sabi — a community-based association founded by residents of Lisbon’s Bairro do Rego in 2014 — Melissa Pereira, Simão Barbosa and Dinis Fernandes, chose to award “Lexi” (Spain), directed by Portuguese filmmaker Bruno Simões. The award is part of the section dedicated to younger audiences and families.

MOTELX AUDIENCE AWARD

The MOTELX Audience Award went to “Gunman”, directed and written by Argentine filmmaker Cris Tapia Marchiori.

MOTELX 2026 Award Winners: NO REST FOR THE WICKED And MANCAVE win Best European films, IT'S CHICO TIME! wins Best Portuguese Short

Around the Internet

Recent Posts