76 projects supported and 56 without support due to lack of funds

DGArtes will support 76 projects, with 1.91 million euros, in the Programming competition of the 2024 Project Support Program, to be implemented this year, with 56 applications being left out due to lack of funds.

According to the final results, published this Thursday on the official website of the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGArtes), of the 155 applications admitted to the competition, 76 will be supported. There are 79 applications that will not receive support, 56 of which because "the total available amount" of 1.91 million euros has been exhausted, eight because they fell below the 60% minimum score required and 15 for other reasons.

According to DGArtes, the final decision of the competition was communicated to the candidates this Thursday.

According to the notice of opening of the Programming competition, “projects must be executed within a limit of 18 months, in the period between July 1, 2025 and December 31, 2026”.

In geographical terms, support reaches all regions of Portugal, with 19 projects supported in the North, 12 in the Center, three in the West and Tagus Valley, 18 in Greater Lisbon, two in the Setúbal Peninsula, 13 in Alentejo, three in the Algarve, four in the Autonomous Region of the Azores and two in the Autonomous Region of Madeira.

In terms of artistic areas, 50 Cross-Disciplinary projects are supported, 13 in Theater, nine in Dance and four in Circus.

Among the supported entities are the Lendias D'Encantar Association, from Beja, Sonora — Cultural Association, from Lisbon, the Palmilha Dentada Theater, from Porto, Zigur — Cultural Association, from Lamego, the Ponto d'Orvalho Association, from Montemor-o-Novo, and the Aveiro Poetic Group.3

The six competitions under the Project Support Program for 2025 total 13.35 million euros, a figure that remained unchanged compared to the competitions that opened in 2023, to be implemented in 2024.

The Visual Arts competition has a budget of 2.33 million euros, the Music and Opera competition 3.37 million euros, the Internationalization competition 1.035 million euros, the Creation and Publishing competition 4.015 million euros, the Programming competition 1.910 million euros, and the Simplified Procedure competition 690 thousand euros.

On July 7, the Plateia association warned of delays, “for yet another consecutive year,” in the publication of the results of the Project Support and Simplified Support competitions.

The final results of the Simplified Procedure were released the following day. This year, 146 artistic projects will be supported, 22 more than in the previous edition, but 292 eligible applications were excluded, as the total available amount of 690,000 euros had been exhausted.

On July 10, the Director General of Arts, Américo Rodrigues, told Lusa that the delay in publishing the results of the project support competitions is a consequence of the increase in applications, which, compared to the previous year, grew by “more than 30%”.

Américo Rodrigues acknowledged that the situation “worries the artists,” but assured that “DGArtes makes every effort to publicize the jury’s decisions as they are presented to it.”

Juries are, in fact, another aspect that influences waiting times for the completion of cases, since, in addition to internal professionals, these groups also include "external people, specialists", resulting in "different dynamics and work rhythms from committee to committee".

The final results of the Internationalization competition were announced on July 16th. This year, 109 applications were supported, out of the 149 admitted. Forty applications were rejected: ten for falling below the minimum score required for 60%, and 30 because "the total available amount was exhausted."

The Visual Arts, Music and Opera, Internationalization, Creation and Editing and Programming competitions, as well as the Simplified Procedure for 2025, should have opened by the end of December last year, but they opened on January 15th and closed on February 26th.