IndieJunior celebrates its coming of age this year, but the party is for all of us. There are films for all tastes and ages, side activities for kids and adults and many special sessions to celebrate the 18th anniversary of this section of IndieLisboa.
We start celebrating on Saturday, April 23rd, when MusicBox opens its doors for a warm-up worthy of a newcomer to adulthood. The first act is marked by a session to whet the appetite for another edition of the festival, which will recall 6 short films screened last year. In the second act, the dance floor is led by a back2back between parents and children, in a matinee that opens the Musicbox, a mythical space of Lisbon nightlife, to those under 18 years old.
The following week, on April 30th, the first of two All-Family Sessions. The afternoon starts at Culturgest’s Main Auditorium, with a selection of films that recall the best that has gone through the festival in recent years, and ends across the street, in the garden of Biblioteca Palácio Galveias, with music, games and activities.
Starting with the youngest, with the sessions for preschool audiences over 3 years old, we highlight three films – Ursinho Silencioso, by Māra Liniņa, made from sewing threads and yarn balls, Olá Estranho, by Julia Ocker, a regular presence at the festival, about an astronaut who lands on a strange planet, and Pincéis de Cerda, by Quentin Haberham, a short film about empathy and helping each other.
For primary education, for children over 6 years old, Luce e a Rocha, by Britt Rae, and Guarda de Honra, by Edmunds Jansons, come together in the extraordinary way in which both use colour to compose a very specific imagery. Sozinhos no Elevador, by Anastasia Papadopoulou, is inspired by social codes and the way they influence our behaviour even when we are alone.
Filip Diviak, a repeater at the festival, uses the universe of fables in his Sons da Realeza. O Fato de Mergulho de Klingert, directed by Artur Wyrzykowski, focuses on the invention of the wetsuit and how it affects a young woman and her fear of water. Contos de Água Salgada is a short anthology of stories related to the beach and the sea. A Fantástica Competição de Voos shows us an air race, where flying houses compete for victory against birds, planes and balloons.
The proposals for secondary education are thematically different. Yaren e o Sol is a short documentary about grief, healing and friendship, its action taking place over the course of a week in a grief camp. O Beijo crosses technological ubiquity and pre-teen hormones.
Dentro unfolds in a mosaic of windows, where the interior opens to the exterior and a multiplicity of moments of everyday life overlap and communicate with each other.
This edition brings back Baby Cinema, the place at IndieJunior designed for children aged 4 months to 2 and a half years old. Baby Cinema is thus named for two reasons: firstly, it refers to the place from which a baby begins to get to know the world around him; secondly, it contextualizes the creation of a scenography, inside a room but inspired by the outdoors, where the child can react and move safely, replicating the snuggled lap of a friend or family member. During the various sessions that are planned, six short films will be screened, with stories full of colour and stimulating sounds. Baby Cinema is made in partnership with Hero Baby and is scheduled for Sala 2 of Cinema São Jorge, where the scenography specially designed for this session is signed by Maria Eugênia Cavaggioni and Bárbara Costa, students at ESMAE.
Repeating what has been happening every year, the initiative I Program a Film Festival initiative gives students in middle and secondary school the opportunity to program cinema for children of their age group. With the help of 5th grade students (middle education session/+10 years old) from Escola Básica D. João II in Caldas da Rainha, and the 9th grade students (secondary education session / +12 years old) from Escola Básica e Secundária Mestre Domingos Saraiva, we learn about films we all should be watching.
The parallel activities are many and varied: the partnership with Orfeu Negro returns, with the aim of bringing cinema and literature closer to the younger generation; the illustrator who brings Maria Carvão® to life guides an illustration workshop with EMEL and traffic signs being the motto for the workshop Construct Different Signs.
On May 6th, Palácio Galveias will host a film followed by a debate, to create a dialogue between parents, children and teachers. The chosen film was Estrelas do Mar (Stars on the Sea), by Jang Seung-Wook, and the theme couldn’t be more urgent: the climate crisis and the way it affects us all. This debate is a joint initiative with the PNA – Plano Nacional das Artes.
The 18th edition of IndieJunior in Lisbon will take place at Cinema São Jorge, Culturgest, Cinema Ideal and Biblioteca Palácio Galveias between April 28th and May 8th. The complete programme, as well as the schedule for screenings and ticket sales, will be available from the beginning of April. All updates are available at indielisboa.com/indiejunior.
Open Call
We want you to join the party and so we are launching a challenge to all those who have been discovering cinema with us year after year: we will collect audio testimonials that reflect the experience of watching films and the importance of cinema in our lives.
To the little ones who are just starting to come to the festival, we ask: how do you think cinema is made? And from those who have grown up alongside IndieJunior, we want to know: what memories do you keep from older editions? All testimonials will be shared during the festival in different formats. The first 15 people to participate will get 1 double ticket for IndieJunior cinema sessions. Just record an audio with your mobile phone, pay attention to the noise, and send it to us via WhatsApp (+351 962 019 474) or to the email [email protected].
