In total, there are more than 250 films to be seen in some of the most emblematic cinemas in Lisbon, in an edition that marks the return to the usual calendar, during the months of April and May. In a year where the harvest of Portuguese cinema is the biggest ever, with 9 films in the National Feature Film Competition, the opening honors go to an unusual double-bill: Albufeira, a short film from the 1960s in the manner of a mockumentary, by the iconoclastic António de Macedo, and Zéfiro, by José Álvaro de Morais, a film from 1994 that walks around Lisbon as a documentary, but what it really wants is to gallop the Tagus River in full fictional mode, in order to explore the south bank, where it sets off on an adventure Alentejo out to the Algarve. This session is part of the FILmar project, by the Cinemateca Portuguesa, and shows a restored version of the films.
Tomorrow’s cinema doesn’t stop at the opening session. At São Jorge, we can still watch two sessions of IndieJúnior and Boca do Inferno, a selection of short films at 9:45 pm, and Rapture, a lost Spanish classic, at 7:15 pm. At 9.30 pm, at Sala Manoel de Oliveira, we can see the first of two films that João Botelho will premiere at Indielisboa. In A Film Like This, the director once again adapts Alexandre O’Neill. At Culturgest, IndieMusic opens with Cesária Évora, by Ana Sofia Fonseca. A major name in morna, the Cape Verdean diva is an example of someone who has fought against prejudice all her life. Through the singer, the documentary crosses various social and political contexts. In the Small Auditorium, two recurrent names in the festival: the argentine Jonathan Perel and the frenchman Jean-Gabriel Périot. The former presents Camuflage, a film that does not let us forget the marks of the Argentine dictatorship. An adaptation of the book Campo de Mayo, by Felix Bruzzone, and that makes the writer its protagonist. Felix’s mother disappeared in 1976, and was last seen precisely in Campo de Mayo, one of the country’s main detention centers. The second documents the history of the French proletariat from the 1950s to the present day in Retour à Reims (Fragments). At Cinema Ideal we can see new films by two big names in European cinema – Coma, by Bertrand Bonello, at 6pm, and Rimini, by Ulrich Seidl, at 10pm. The retrospective dedicated to Doris Wishman also starts tomorrow, with the classic Bad Girls Go To Hell, a perfect point of entry into the mind of the great American director. To be seen at the Cinematheque, starting at 9:30 pm. The are many choices, and this is only the first day…
The 19th edition of IndieLisboa – International Film Festival will take place from April 28th to May 8th, at São Jorge Cinema, Culturgest, Cinema Ideal, Cinemateca Portuguesa and Jardim Biblioteca Palácio Galveias. You can check the full program here.
