Imaginarius PRO emerges from the desire to create time and space to be present, to dialogue, and to cross paths within the festival. A place designed for professionals, yet lived with the same openness, curiosity, and availability that run through the entire programme. Here, encounters do not happen on the margins, they take place at the centre, in the rhythm of Imaginarius, between performances, ideas, people, and perspectives.
In this edition, PRO embraces a lighter, closer, and more relational presence. The pitchs and presentation sessions are designed to encourage listening, exchange, and unhurried conversation, leaving room for encounters to unfold naturally. By moving closer to the pulsating heart of the festival, Imaginarius PRO assumes that thinking about the sector makes more sense when it happens in the very place where art is tested, exposed to risk, and meets its audiences. Not as a parallel programme, but as a living part of what is taking place.
21 may
25 years: an imagined generation, a shared future
May 21st, 06:00 PM | Casa do Moinho
Community | 45′
The opening of Imaginarius 2026 presents itself as a simple and essential gesture: being together. An open and shared moment, addressed to everyone who makes the festival happen and gives it meaning: team, artists, residents, local community, institutions, businesses, partners, visitors, and audiences. Not as spectators, but as an active presence. More than a formal act, this gathering affirms Imaginarius as a common space, lived and in permanent construction.
Over 25 years, the festival has been built through experiences, encounters, risks, failures, discoveries, and transformations. This memory does not appear here as a nostalgic celebration or a closed archive, but as living matter that continues to act in the present. A time to acknowledge the path travelled, to listen to what has changed, and to situate Imaginarius today, in its relationship with the territory, with public space, and with the people who inhabit it.
From this shared place, the horizon of what comes next opens up. Not as a distant promise or a closed discourse, but as a collective exercise in imagination, responsibility, and choice. A moment to affirm that Imaginarius continues to be made of questions, of encounters, and of the will to imagine together what we do not yet know how to name.
