Cinema Fernando Lopes hosts New Dystopias: Two People Exchanging Saliva and Other Dystopian Shorts, a special programme curated by Watching & Touching, which brings together four recent short films about authoritarianism, government control, intimacy and the increasingly tenuous boundaries between dystopian fiction and contemporary reality. Among the four films is Two People Exchanging Saliva (2024), a French short film directed by Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata, winner of the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film in 2026. Set in a society where kissing is forbidden, the film explores themes such as repression, desire and surveillance. Alexandre Singh previously directed The Appointment (2019). After the screening, the audience can take part in a conversation followed by a question-and-answer session with Alexandre Singh, co-director of Two People Exchanging Saliva and director of The Appointment (2019), and Atalanta Swire, director of Girls Hugging Their Fathers (2024) and Leftover Women (2026), who is taking part in the event by videoconference. short film special screening.