Gramado Film Festival 2026: the guide to the 54th edition — and the story of the Kikito

For eleven days in August, Gramado changes character. The town that is chocolate and hydrangeas the rest of the year becomes a set: a red carpet on the street, the press camped downtown, and people from all over the country looking at the same door waiting to see someone step out of a car.

The 54th Gramado Film Festival runs from 12 to 22 August 2026, at the Palácio dos Festivais.¹

How the festival was born — from a showcase inside the Hydrangea Festival

The festival wasn't invented from scratch. It came out of a film showcase held alongside the Hydrangea Festival between 1969 and 1971, which worked too well to remain an appendix to another party.³

The National Cinema Institute made the event official, and the first edition took place from 10 to 14 January 1973, produced by Gramado City Hall in partnership with Companhia Jornalística Caldas Júnior, Embrafilme, Funarte and the state departments of tourism, education and culture.⁴

In other words: the best-known festival in Brazilian cinema began as an attraction at a flower festival.

Why it's in August, if it started in January

That's the question almost nobody asks, and it explains a lot about this town.

The first edition was in January — the height of the summer season. The festival then moved to autumn, and from the 1990s onwards settled into August.⁵

August is the coldest month and, historically, the emptiest in the Serra's tourist calendar. Placing the country's biggest cultural event there is what turned a dead month into the town's second peak — and it's why anyone visiting Gramado in August finds the town full and shouldn't be surprised.

The Kikito was born before the festival, and it was a gift between friends

In 1973, with the festival already on its way, Rosenfeld organised a competition to choose the best reinterpretation of the sculpture. The winner was the Gramado artisan Orival da Silva Marques, "Xixo", who became responsible for carving the statuettes handed out at the first edition.⁷

In 2022, the Kikito was declared cultural heritage of Gramado by municipal law.⁸

The Caminho das Estrelas: the red carpet is public

During the festival, a red carpet is laid between the Palácio dos Festivais and Rua Coberta, so the artists can move between the two points. It has a name: Caminho das Estrelas (Path of the Stars), inspired by the Hollywood Walk of Fame.⁹

It's the part of the festival that asks for no ticket, no invitation and no knowledge of cinema. You just have to be in downtown Gramado in the late afternoon.

What's on in the 54th edition

The 2026 selection chose seven Brazilian fiction features, documentary features, productions from Rio Grande do Sul and fourteen national shorts competing for the Kikito.¹¹

• Opening: the thriller Antártida, by Bruno Safadi.
• Crystal Kikito: a tribute to Selton Mello and Maria Fernanda Cândido.
• Parallel showcases: Dream Team, Grenal, Santiago and Anita.
• Cinema in the Neighbourhoods: screenings in local schools — the part of the festival that doesn't make the papers and is the part that stays.

And where the period portrait comes in

There's a lovely coincidence between what the festival celebrates and what we do at the studio, and it isn't about glamour.

Cinema, in the beginning, was pose. No sound, no fast cutting, no close-up every two seconds: the actor stood still in front of the camera and had to say everything with clothing, posture and gaze. It's exactly the grammar of the studio portrait of the same period — and it's why a photo from 1920 and a film frame from 1920 look so alike.

Whoever comes for the festival spends eleven days looking at people who know how to pose. Putting on the costume and doing it yourself — with posing direction, a built set and a camera that waits — is the practicable version of that same thing.

And it is, very concretely, what to do between one screening and the next on a rainy August day in the Serra.