MOTELX 2026: DRAG Yourself to Lisbon This September, Full Programme For 20th Edition Announced

MOTELX 20 Years | (20th Edition)

 

Full Programme 

3-13 de September

 

Cinema São Jorge and Cinemateca Portuguesa

 

“Drag”, starring Lizzy Caplan, at the Opening Screening; the survival thriller “Fall 2: Deadpoint” at the Closing Screening; Roger Corman's 100th birthday celebration, attended by producer, Julie Corman; the Master of Horror statuette, which will be presented to Sergio Martino; the seven films competing for the Méliès d’argent Award – Best European Feature Film (including Gael García Bernal and Noomi Rapace in “The End of It”); and new additions to Room Service, including “Hope”, the new film by Na Hong-jin, 10 years after “The Wailing” (starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender), “Nightborn”, a body horror film about parenthood starring Rupert Grint, and “The Plague”, a psychological coming-of-age thriller with Joel Edgerton as a water polo coach. These are just some of the highlights completing the programme for MOTELX’s 20th anniversary edition.

 

Twenty years is no small milestone. The 20th edition of MOTELX — taking place from 3 to 13 September at Cinema São Jorge and Cinemateca Portuguesa — is therefore the biggest edition yet. Over 11 days, the festival’s mission remains unchanged: to celebrate horror cinema in all its many forms, legacies and trends, drawing on the experience of a festival with two decades behind it. Following the first announcement in July, we can now unveil the full programme for this very special edition of MOTELX, featuring more than 170 films from over 40 countries, more than 145 screenings, and plenty of activity beyond the cinema theatres.

 

Opening and Closing Sessions

 

The Opening Screening of MOTELX’s 20th edition brings “Drag” (USA), by Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer, to Cinema São Jorge. This dark comedy delivers significant doses of blood when one of two amateur burglars (Lizzy Caplan and Lucy DeVito) injures her back and becomes immobilised during a home invasion — the film is produced by Danny DeVito. For the Closing Screening, on 12 September, the chosen film is “Fall 2: Deadpoint” (USA/UK/Thailand), by brothers Michael and Peter Spierig. This survival thriller follows two friends who become trapped on a dangerous suspended crossing after a rockslide. It is a sequel to Scott Mann’s hugely successful 2022 film “Fall”.

 

 

 

Room Service

 

Knock, knock. A host of new titles are now arriving in Room Service, further expanding this 20th edition of MOTELX. Highlights include: “Colony” (South Korea), by Yeon Sang-ho (“Train to Busan”), in which zombies with a collective consciousness take over a high-rise building in central Seoul; “DreamQuil” (USA/UK), by Alex Prager, starring Elizabeth Banks (with John C. Reilly and Juliette Lewis also in the cast), a sci-fi psychological thriller set in the near future and dominated by artificial intelligence; “Ghost in the Cell” (Indonesia), by Joko Anwar, a gory satire in which a supernatural force decimates the population of a prison; “Nightborn” (Finland/Lithuania/France/UK), by Hanna Bergholm, where a newborn baby with suspicious looks and behaviour drives a couple to despair — with Rupert Grint (“Harry Potter”) among the cast; “Pinocchio: Unstrung” (USA), by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, a disturbing take on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale, where wood turns into terror; “The Plague” (USA/Romania/Australia/UAE), by Charlie Polinger, a psychological coming-of-age story in which Joel Edgerton plays the coach of a water polo team that becomes a laboratory for violence and toxic masculinity; “Roma Elastica” (Italy/France), by Bertrand Mandico, a sci-fi comedy-drama laced with horror that pays tribute to the great masters of Italian cinema through a film-within-a-film — starring Marion Cotillard; “Hope” (South Korea), by Na Hong-jin, who returns 10 years after the acclaimed “The Wailing” with an adrenaline-fuelled hybrid of gunfire, monsters and high-powered cars — with Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender in the cast. 

 

Méliès d’argent Award – Best European Feature Film 

 

European horror cinema is alive and well. The aesthetic diversity of the seven films competing in this section is further proof of that. “BodyHackers” (Portugal/Italy), by Carlos Conceição, is a body horror set in the underground world of clandestine cosmetic surgery, starring Joana Ribeiro, Alba Baptista and Elina Löwensohn. The latter, a Romanian-American actress and Hal Hartley muse, also appears in “Bloody Tennis” (Germany), by Nikias Chryssos, where the supernatural takes to the court at a tennis academy plagued by sinister rivalries. In “Ferine” (Italy), by Andrea Corsini, a morbid giallo brings together an exotic animal trafficker (Caroline Goodall) and an art collector (Carolyn Bracken). “The End of It” (UK/Spain/Norway), by Maria Martínez Bayona, is set in a post-human future where death is simply an option — starring Gael García Bernal and Noomi Rapace. Also competing are “No Rest for the Wicked” (Denmark/Faroe Islands/Iceland), by Kasper Kalle; “Species” (Belgium/France), by Marion Le Correller; and “The Birthday Party” (Belgium/France), by Léa Mysius, starring Monica Bellucci.

 

Special Screenings

 

The 2026 Special Screenings bring together films that span different eras and cinematic traditions. “The Hunger” (1983), by Tony Scott, is this year’s RTP Antena 3 Special Screening: a cult 1980s erotic thriller in which David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon form a dark triangle between vampires and humans. “Silence” (2025), by Spanish filmmaker Eduardo Casanova, is a tragicomedy set during Spain’s AIDS crisis that reinvents the vampire subgenre to explore darkness and passion in a world that judges and condemns without mercy. Also featured are “Polyester” (1981; USA), by John Waters, and “Wicked, Wicked” (1973; USA), by Richard L. Bare, two films that experimented with film gimmicks in their conception. The former introduced a relationship between smell and screen known as Odorama, using a series of cards that audiences scratched during the screening to discover scents corresponding to what they were seeing on screen. The latter was presented entirely in split-screen, using a concept known as “anamorphic Duo-Vision”, allowing audiences to follow two perspectives of the story simultaneously, one on each side of the screen. And, of course, the now-traditional Surprise Screening with FilmTwist, scheduled for the final day of the festival, 13 September, could not be missing.

 

Roger Corman Centenary 

 

MOTELX joins the tribute to Roger Corman currently taking place at festivals around the world. In 2026, the influential American filmmaker would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Corman — who visited Lisbon in 2017 at the invitation of the Festival — was not merely the “King of B-movies”; he was one of the architects of modern independent cinema. Alongside screenings of “A Bucket of Blood” (1959) and “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1960), MOTELX is honoured to welcome Julie Corman, producer and the filmmaker’s partner, who will give a masterclass to mark the centenary.

 

Noémia Delgado Award

 

The announcement was made in July: Portuguese-Swedish filmmaker Solveig Nordlund is the recipient of the Noémia Delgado Award for Outstanding Women in Horror. To celebrate this pioneering voice in fantasy and horror cinema — whose distinctive body of work is deeply influenced by H. P. Lovecraft and J. G. Ballard — MOTELX will screen “Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude” (2002), “Nem Pássaro Nem Peixe” (1977), “Uma Voz na Noite” (1988), “Viagem a Orion” (1986) and “Espelho Lento” (2010).

 

Suite 13

 

Another section previously announced, Suite 13 can now confirm the titles that will be screened. Centred on Italian filmmaker Sergio Martino — who will attend the festival — and curated by guest programmer Carlos Alberto Carrilho, this year’s Suite 13, subtitled “Sergio Martino and Acid Giallo”, will present Sergio Martino’s “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh” (1971), “The Case of Scorpion’s Tail” (1971) and “All the Colors of the Dark” (1972), alongside Carlos Alberto Carrilho’s “Acid Giallo: Atmosferas que Turvam os Sentidos” (2026).

 

 

 

Guests

 

Over these 20 years, MOTELX has once again opened its doors to a significant number of distinguished guests. First and foremost, Julie Corman, producer and partner of Roger Corman, who will give a masterclass during the festival to mark the filmmaker’s centenary. Italian filmmaker Sergio Martino, whose giallo cinema is at the heart of Suite 13, will also be attending the festival. He will be honoured with the Master of Horror statuette, previously awarded to figures such as Jodorowsky and Corman, and will give a masterclass exploring his filmography. German filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit, who brings “Nekromantik” (1988) and “The Death King” (1990) to the “Talking About Death (Never Killed Anyone)” programme, presented in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Portugal, is another guest who will lead a masterclass revisiting his work. Geoff Barrow, founder of English band Portishead and producer and screenwriter of “Game” — directed by John Minton — as well as Jason Williamson, lead vocalist of Sleaford Mods and an actor in the British film, will also be making their way to Lisbon. So will Brazilian producer Rodrigo Teixeira, who returns to the festival in connection with “Bowels of Hell”, by Gustavo Vinagre and Gurcius Gewdner, who will be joining him alongside actress Martha Nowill. Abner Pastoll (“Nervous”), Patrik Syversen (“Dawning”), Zachary Aaron Nichols (“Variations on Violence”), Eduardo and Ximena Lecuona (“No Me Sigas”), and Kapel Furman (“Remanence - A Voltage Cosmic Horror”) complete the guest line-up.