A film three decades in the making lands at the Locarno Film Festival on Monday, 10 August 2026. Edgar Pêra's Asphalt Guerrilla (Guerrilha no Asfalto) will have its world premiere in the Out of Competition programme of the festival's 79th edition, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Portuguese production revisits the FP-25 — Forças Populares 25 de Abril, or Popular Forces 25th of April — a militant group active in Portugal from 1980 to 1987 that carried out dozens of bombings, shootings and bank robberies. Pêra adapted the screenplay with producer Rodrigo Areias from a book by Manuel Ricardo de Sousa, a group member who was lynched by a mob in the aftermath of a bank robbery. Pêra first read the book in the 1990s; Areias later proposed he turn it into a film.

The cast features Miguel Moreira, Maria Leite, Ivo Arroja, Albano Jerónimo, Bernardo Santo Tirso and Luke Eberl. The voices of Pêra himself and Jerónimo also feature in the film. Jorge Quintela serves as cinematographer and João Mora as editor. The Locarno Film Festival lists the production company as Bando à Parte, with a 2026 production year, in DCP 2K, colour.

Variety reported earlier in July that Asphalt Guerrilla is partly made with AI, a detail that aligns with Pêra's long-standing reputation for technical experimentation. He began making an underground name for himself in the mid-1980s as a "neuro-punk" filmmaker tied to DIY counterculture and the Portuguese music scene. Earlier credits include Telepathic Letters and Manual of Evasion LX94.

What gives the project its particular charge is the collision of subject and sensibility. The FP-25 were among the most violent actors in post-revolution Portugal, and de Sousa's death — killed by the very public he had terrorised — is the kind of stark, unresolved episode that resists easy dramatisation. Pêra described the film as a tragicomedy set in 1970s and 1980s Portugal when he first mentioned it in a 2024 Hollywood Reporter interview about Telepathic Letters. That tone, applied to a story of revolutionary violence and mob justice, promises something uneasy rather than reverent.

The Locarno Out of Competition slot — a section the festival uses for films that fall outside its main competition but warrant prominent showcasing — places Pêra alongside international titles the festival deems worthy of immediate audience attention. For a Portuguese-language film about a domestic militant chapter with little international name recognition, the platform is significant: Locarno's Piazza Grande, one of the largest open-air screening venues in the world, can seat thousands.

The film now enters the festival circuit with distribution still to be confirmed. No sales deals or theatrical release dates have been announced.