After a month during which several of our sister cities across Portugal were left reeling from devastating storms, it feels important to pause. Culture can never replace what has been lost — homes, livelihoods, landmarks — but it can offer something steady: a place to gather, reflect, and rebuild a sense of connection.
Now that it’s beginning to feel like spring is around the corner, the events below should serve as a reminder of the shared resilience that got us here. Of music, film, conversation, and creativity continuing as we recover. Showing up, supporting artists, and strengthening community feels less like the celebration of solidarity we could all use right now.
That said, here are our picks for March:
to July 27 | ART EXHBITION | “Fine Arts,” by Bruno Zhu | CAM Gulbenkian Modern Art Center | FREE
Find out how the Porto-born artist turns CAM’s deconstructs the hierarchies of taste, authorship, and institutional power that shape both what we see and how we’re told to see it. Influenced by fashion, publishing, and exhibition design, Zhu opened the exhibit on the last day of February, treating the museum as a stage for something conceptual, slightly subversive, and very aware of the frame around the frame. FYI, CAM is closed on Tuesdays. Get more info here.
to March 21 | CINEMA FESIVAL + WORKSHOPS | PLAY Festival | Various Cinemas | 2,80 – 3,50€
PLAY Film Festival is back for its 13th edition with quite a program. Over nine days, São Jorge and friends like Cinemateca and Ideal, will screen nearly 200 films from 50 countries, tailored by age group from wide-eyed kiddos to eye-rolling teens, so there’s plenty of space for curiosity. Inspired this year by Portuguese experimental poet Salette Tavares, PLAY leans into creative rule-breaking. There are workshops too, so kids (and brave adults) can try filmmaking for themselves. Bring small humans or your own inner one! Check the details here.
March 1 | OPERA — WORLD PREMIERE | Ti Chitas – The Voice that is a Mountain | 17h | 7,50€
Ti Chitas is the rare family opera that feels rooted rather than rarefied. Bringing together the Orquestra Barroca D’Aquém Mar and the living legacy of folk matriarch Catarina Sargenta (affectionately known as Ti Chitas), it celebrates the oral traditions of a shepherdess, singer, and tambourine player whose story has travelled through generations of women. With musical direction by maestro Pedro Castro, this is heritage on another level. Get tickets here.
March 4, 11, 18, and 25 (to April 29) | POP UP BOOK WORKSHOP | Museu Bordallo Pinheiro | 19h – 21h | 50€ for all
Ever wondered how pop-up books actually work? Have you briefly considered taking a scalpel to one to find out? This pop-up club saves you the vandalism. Led by André Garcia Pimenta, the workshop dives into the surprisingly radical history of mechanical books before getting hands-on with V-folds, parallel folds, and the clever paper engineering that makes things spring to life. You’ll dissect examples from books and postcards, then channel a bit of Bordalo Pinheiro’s graphic wit to create your own. Check out the details here.
March 6 – 7 | MUSIC FESTIVAL | Portuguese Guitar Festival | Various Locations/Times/Prices
The Portuguese Guitar Festival is back, courtesy of the Fado Museum, and it’s taking over Cinema São Jorge, Teatro Variedades and Capitólio for two days dedicated to Portugal’s most dramatic string instrument. Yes, there’s tradition. But there’s also reinvention, genre-crossing, and a new generation proving the guitarra portuguesa can do far more than make you weep into your vinho. Expect big names like Custódio Castelo, Pedro Jóia and Ricardo Parreira, plus a well-earned tribute to the legendary Armandinho — because icons deserve their accolades. Check the schedule and get tickets here.
March 7 | DISCUSSION | “Intersections Between Art and Fashion” | Lidija Kolovrat | CAM Gulbenkian: Engawa Space | 17h10 | FREE
As part of the 64th Lisbon Fashion Week, artist Mikhail Karikis and designer Lidija Kolovrat sit down to dissect the ever-blurring line between fashion and visual art. Presented in partnership with ModaLisboa, this talk is all about skipping the runway glam and diving into process, experimentation, and how both disciplines steal from each other to invent something new. The chat will be in English. Click here to read more.
March 7 – 8 | CHEESE FEST | Festa do Queijo Serra da Estrela | Oliveira do Hospital | FREE
This annual Serra da Estrela Cheese Festival is dedicated to Portugal’s most famous (and fiercely protected) DOP cheese. Charcuterie lovers can expect mountains of the gooey good stuff, plus Dão wines, sausages, honey, handicrafts, and enough regional gastronomy to justify loosening a belt notch. There are live cheese-making demos, sheep shearing workshops (yes, really), tastings galore, and plenty happening across the town square. Fun fact: This year’s “guest cheese” is Torta del Casar from the Spanish Extremadura region. Read more here.
March 12 – 15 | FASHION SHOWS | Moda Lisboa | Patio da Galé | Various times and prices
This annual event is where Lisbon lights up the runway. From pay to play fashion labs, workshops, and discussions to free-entry networking sessions with designers and key industry know-it-alls, there’s a little something for everyone. Check out the lineup on their website here and get ready to bust out your sparkly pants to mark the occasion.
March 14 | LIVE MUSIC | Super Ballet: Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie + Garoa | Galeria Zé dos Bois | 22h |16€
Melbourne experimental heavyweights Oren Ambarchi and Will Guthrie reunite for a rare live collision of drums and molten guitar— a partnership decades in the making, previously captured on the aptly titled Knotting. Expect hypnotic percussion, subterranean drones, and “volcanic” minimalism. Opening the night, Lisbon-based duo Garoa blend Afro-Brazilian rhythms with ambient textures and full-tilt improvisation, folding baião and northeastern grooves into synth-drenched, rhythm-forward exploration. Click here for tickets.
March 15 | FILM + ORCHESTRA | Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights | Teatro Camões | 17h | 20 – 30€
City Lights is peak Charlie Chaplin — written, directed, and performed by the man himself as the eternally hopeful Tramp. Made in 1931, when Hollywood was discovering talkies, Chaplin stubbornly stuck to silence and produced one of the most devastatingly romantic comedies ever put on screen: a tramp, a blind flower seller, a chaotic millionaire, and a finale that can still reduce grown adults to emotional rubble. Screened with Chaplin’s original score performed live by the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa, this is cinema as it was meant to be: big-hearted, slightly scruffy, and timeless. Get tickets here.
March 17 | CONCERT | Concerto delle donne | Academia das Ciências de Lisboa | 19h | 7,50 – 15€
Concerto delle donne spotlights Maddalena Casulana (the first woman to get her music published, no biggie), Francesca Caccini (court composer and early opera pioneer), and the unstoppable Barbara Strozzi, whose 17th-century cantatas can still jostle your bones. Expect madrigals, arias, and compositional confidence that elegantly ignores the patriarchy. Get tickets here.
March 28 | FILM | Hugo | Cinemateca | 15h | 2€
Hugo sees Martin Scorsese swap gangsters for gears in this lush, clockwork wonder that echoes the styles of early cinema. Based on Brian Selznick’s novel and inspired by the real life of pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès, the film follows 12-year-old Hugo, a Paris station orphan secretly maintaining the clocks while obsessively repairing a mysterious automaton. Enter Isabelle and her grumpy toy-seller uncle, and suddenly the past (and the magic of movies) begins to reveal itself. Good clean family fun. Get tickets here.
March 21, 22, 28, 29 | WORKSHOP | Children’s Dance Atelier: Swan Lake | 10h30 and 15h | 3€
A prince, two swans, and a wizard set the scene for this imaginative dance workshop at Teatro Camões, where children step into a storybook world and explore light and shadow through movement. This class is less about perfect steps and more about creativity, expression, and a little magic. Grab your kid and head over to Studio 1 (enter via the Artists’ Entrance opposite the main doors). Shoes aren’t allowed, comfortable clothes and socks are recommended, and both children and accompanying adults will need tickets. Read more and get tickets here.
