The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry has turned itself into a film festival campus this week, hosting the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology through Sunday with a record 170 live-action, animated and stop-motion films from 31 countries. The six-day event, known by its acronym PFCAT, runs August 18 through 23 and mixes theater screenings with planetarium dome shows, VR showcases and hands-on demos from working animators.
The festival's scale this year outpaces its recent history, according to the Willamette Week, which reported that PFCAT screened 119 films in 2023 and 150 in 2025 before this year's jump to 170 titles from countries including South Korea, Dubai and Brazil. PFCAT director Marisa Cohen and executive producer Peter Isaac Alexander spoke with KATU ahead of the event, which festival organizers describe as a celebration of independent film, animation and emerging technology built around exclusive screenings, filmmaker Q&As and immersive experiences focused on the future of storytelling.
A Traveling Festival Finds a Permanent Home
PFCAT wasn't always anchored in one building. Founded in 2002, the event operated for two decades under the name International Festival of Cinema & Technology, traveling to 16 cities across six countries — including Australia, Canada, France, the Philippines, the U.K. and the U.S. — before rebranding in 2022 and settling into OMSI, per the station's report. Organizers say the festival has staged 37 events around the globe across 21 venues over its history and has screened more than 1,500 films total, including hundreds of world or regional premieres.
Festival organizers also claim, per the outlet, that PFCAT was the first filmless and tapeless film festival, reflecting a mission organizers describe as finding visionary films that have often been overlooked. Consolidating under OMSI's roof let the festival lean into the museum's unusual mix of spaces rather than juggling multiple venues across a touring circuit, the Willamette Week noted.
Empirical Theater, Planetarium Dome and VR Take the Spotlight
OMSI's facilities give PFCAT room to showcase formats a typical multiplex can't handle. Screenings take place in the museum's 300-seat Empirical Theater IMAX screen — which the Willamette Week reports houses the largest movie screen in Portland — alongside dome screenings in the Kendall Planetarium, VR showcases in the museum auditorium, and events at Theory Restaurant, according to FilmFreeway's festival listing.
Audience members help decide some of the festival's outcomes themselves. Voters cast ballots for PFCAT's Audience Choice Awards through a custom augmented reality smartphone app built specifically for the event, FilmFreeway notes, underscoring the festival's dual focus on technology and storytelling.
LAIKA's Wildwood and a Free Creator Expo
Stop-motion animation gets particular attention this year. An August 20 panel brings artists from Hillsboro-based LAIKA studio to discuss their upcoming feature Wildwood, directed by Travis Knight and set for nationwide theatrical release in October, according to the Willamette Week. A separate August 23 panel titled “Attack of the Puppet People” gathers stop-motion artists whose credits include The Tiny Chef Show, Wendell & Wild and Portlandia.
For anyone not holding a festival pass, PFCAT offers a free public Creator Expo on August 22 in OMSI's auditorium, where guests can meet animators and watch live set and puppet demos from stop-motion projects, per the same outlet. Festival organizers told KATU the event will feature an interactive expo alongside its ticketed screening tracks, giving casual visitors a way into the festival without buying in to the full lineup.
Judged Categories and Oregon's Film Incentives
Beyond the public-facing programming, PFCAT runs a competitive juried structure. The festival awards prizes across more than 30 categories, with cash and hardware from sponsors including Wacom, the Oregon Film Office and the Portland Film Office, FilmFreeway reports; judges help select the award winners, and the festival awarded more than $5,000 in cash and equipment during its 2025 edition.
That competitive infrastructure sits inside a broader state effort to keep film and animation work in Oregon. The state's Oregon Production Investment Fund offers rebates of up to 25% on local production spending, capped at $21.2 million annually in 2026, according to Oregon Film, with a Local OPIF sub-fund available to projects spending as little as $75,000. MovieMaker Magazine has cited PFCAT as a standout local institution in naming Portland one of its “Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker” picks for 2025 and 2026, per FilmFreeway.
Tickets for the remaining days of PFCAT are on sale now, with the festival's run continuing through Sunday at OMSI.
