Fiction series · Beira Baixa
Aventesma
A series on the eve of the Carnation Revolution.
Created by three-time Emmy Award winner Mitchell Kriegman and Filipe Homem Fonseca, and shot across the UNESCO Naturtejo Global Geopark.
The project
Aventesma is an eight-episode premium fiction series set in the mountains of Beira Baixa on the eve of the Carnation Revolution. It is a work of high artistic ambition built on a simple conviction: that the Portuguese interior holds stories of real dramatic and emotional weight, and deserves to see them told at the scale of the best contemporary television.
Why it matters
The interior, told at the scale of great television.
Aventesma is a work of high artistic ambition built on a simple conviction: that the Portuguese interior holds stories of real dramatic and emotional weight, and deserves to see them told at the scale of the best contemporary television.
By binding a high-ambition production to the heritage and identity of Beira Baixa, it aims to draw national and international attention, audiences and visitors to a region too often overlooked, and to show that ambitious storytelling can be a genuine engine of territorial development.
It is the largest-scale fiction production ever made in Portugal, and it aims to place Portuguese film and television among the serious contenders in high-end international fiction, alongside the creators of the world's leading series.
The series
A family, a secret, a country in transformation.
The story
The Marques family lives under the weight of silence: a colonial-war secret, a nation on the cusp of profound change.
The legend
The Aventesma, a spectral figure from local folklore said to appear when the land itself is in turmoil.
The territory
Seven municipalities of Beira Baixa, where the landscape is not a backdrop but a character.
The audience
Designed for international audiences, in Portuguese and English.
Made in the Naturtejo Geopark
Created, written and produced by three-time Emmy Award winner Mitchell Kriegman and Filipe Homem Fonseca, and produced by Rio Tigre, Aventesma shoots across the UNESCO Naturtejo Global Geopark, a territory spanning seven municipalities of Beira Baixa. The landscape is not a backdrop but a character: its mountains, villages and light shape the look and texture of the series.
Culture as territorial development
Aventesma is conceived with a dual purpose: artistic excellence and the cultural and economic activation of the interior. By binding a high-ambition production to the heritage and identity of Beira Baixa, it aims to draw national and international attention, audiences and visitors to a region too often overlooked, and to show that ambitious storytelling can be a genuine engine of territorial development.
Photos: Naturtejo EIM.
Framework
Portugal's Donation Golden Visa (legally, the ARI Cultural route)
Project status
Approved by the Ministry of Culture.
Eligibility
All non-EU citizens.
Donor benefits
Project-specific benefits, shared in donor calls.
The partnership
Who is building Aventesma.
Promoter
Naturtejo EIM
The intermunicipal company that manages the UNESCO Naturtejo Global Geopark.
Producer
Rio Tigre
The production company of Edgar Medina and Luís Urbano.
Creators
Mitchell Kriegman and Filipe Homem Fonseca
Three-time Emmy Award winner, and the co-creator of Herman Enciclopédia.
Cultural Co-Producer
Cascais Ventures
The leading cultural creation agency in Portugal.
Who we are
Cascais Ventures creates and produces the government-approved cultural projects behind Portugal's Donation Golden Visa: heritage rehabilitation, film and documentary, artistic programmes.