Edgar Pêra’s new film Asphalt Guerrilla blends historical events, fictional storytelling and AI-assisted techniques to revisit Portugal’s FP-25 militant group and reflect on radicalism, artistic independence and filmmaking itself. Premiering out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival on 10 August, the film matters because it uses a contentious chapter of Portuguese democracy to question both political violence and the compromises involved in making art.

FP-25, active from 1980 to 1987, carried out dozens of bombings, shootings and bank robberies; the film draws on Manuel Ricardo de Sousa’s book about a member killed by a mob after a robbery. Its story follows a student drawn into the group, while a parallel director character leaves it to pursue guerrilla filmmaking; Pêra co-wrote the screenplay with producer Rodrigo Areias and describes the work as containing “many films”.