Closing Party

During the closing night, we look back at the highlights of the Movies that Matter Festival 2025 and celebrate the festival’s grand finale!

Audience Award

The Movies that Matter Audience Award, supported by ASN Bank, is presented to the filmmaker of the official selection film (excluding specials, shorts, premieres, and classics) with the highest average audience rating. Before the closing film, the winner will receive the Audience Award from Kirsten Kossen, Head of Human Rights at ASN Bank.

Closing Film: Balomania

In the heart of Brazil’s favelas, filmmaker Sissel Morell Dargis gains unprecedented access to the hidden world of the ‘balloon mafia’. For baloeiros in Rio and Sao Paolo, hot air balloon construction, flying and chasing is a treasured and competitive art form – as well as central to their sense of community and cultural heritage since colonial times. Now, authorities have made their art illegal, ranking them just below drug cartels in the law. It drives the baloeiros underground.

With police and bounty hunters hot on their heels, Dargis embarks on a wild ride to witness the extreme obsession and sacrifice required to build these spectacular balloons that reach over 70 meters high and that require over 100 people to launch into the sky. As one reviewer put it: ‘The ultimate in high-stakes outsider art.’

Closing Party

We wrap up the 17th edition of the festival in The Hague with a performance by Brazilian multitalent Fernando Oliveira and a DJ set by local legend Andeweg (PAARD) in the foyer.