IndieLAB is a face-to-face training taught by Fernanda Polacow, Brazilian screenwriter and documentary filmmaker, which began in the last edition of the festival and whose first phase took place between the 14th and 16th of March. The second phase will take place between the 26th and 29th of May, during the festival.
This training, resulting from a partnership between INDIELISBOA and NOVA FCSH, INDIELAB focuses on writing and developing projects that work with non-normative characters with the aim of continuing to encourage dialogue about inclusion and representation in cinema.
This year’s selected projects were:
Femmes de Ménage, by Ágata Pinho
Femmes de Ménage follows Ágata, a young filmmaker who temporarily emigrates to Luxembourg to work on cleaning. Once there, she observes the daily lives of other cleaning employees, all emigrant women, who every day enter the privacy of clients’ homes. From this meeting, Ágata weaves a story together with the other women: what can we make happen in fiction that is not possible in real life?
The Hand, by Alexander David
Tó is a 12-year-old boy who lives with his parents on an agricultural farm. He leads a quiet life, close to animals and some farmers. Tó is a good flutist and regularly plays for the animals. When his father receives a visit from a Portuguese emigrant interested in buying the farm, the elements of Tó’s life take on new meanings. Tó feels the effects of desire and finds in the flute’s melodies a form of enchantment, in his entry into maturity.
Sometimes I Want the Flowers to Bloom Immediately, by Daniel Borga
Coming from Lisbon, Bruno has three months in Odemira ahead of him. Afraid of the lack of stimulation and experiencing a creative block, he meets Kishor, a Nepalese immigrant with whom he forms a friendship.
Coffee Singularities, by Filipa Amaro e Marco Mendonça
In rural Angola, a young Portuguese-Angolan man arrives at a white family’s coffee farm. Just as they are about to close a new deal, he discovers something terrible about this family. Things escalate and a violent conflict forces him to confront his identity.
Live, Laugh, Lesbian Longing, by Francisca Antunes
Made from scraps, letters to no one and diary entries, Live, Laugh, Lesbian Longing is an exploration of the act of desire when desire is just an idea. With a character, lesbian, made of voice and writing, between alienation and alienation. Where do your fantasies belong?
Everything that Passes through the Body is Mineral, by Larissa Barbosa
Moara, a dancer who lives in Portugal, comes from a family of blacksmiths in the interior of Minas Gerais. She returns to Brazil to see her family, and despite exchanging letters with her brother in recent years, she discovers that he passed away a long time ago when a mining company’s dam collapsed. Strangely, the village where the family lives is no longer in the same place, it seems to have disappeared from the map. However, after encountering a large cloth serpent at carnival, Moara wakes up in the middle of a eucalyptus forest where she finds her village again. Intrigued by her brother’s fake letters, she tries to find out who the real sender of the correspondence was. The reunion with her family will reveal things about herself and her land that will transform Moara profoundly.
The Loneliness of the Cyborg Woman, by Luísa Mello e Ana Vilela da Costa
The world has reached environmental collapse. To survive, humans had to adapt to new planetary conditions, transforming into human-plant symbiotic beings. Inside a greenhouse, a cyborg woman is responsible for keeping the last mutant humans alive. The days repeat themselves in what appears to be a harrowing prolongation of an inevitable end, leading the solitary guardian to ask questions about the meaning of her existence.
No Shoes, by Renata Ferraz
A director-actress who doesn’t sing decides to ask three women from different territories in Portugal and one from Brazil to help her sing while they create a film together. Women who sing have in common that they have been stigmatized for not following what was expected of them. Together, behind and in front of the cameras, they create a polyphonic portrait of individual and collective (re)existences.
See the previous edition selected projects here.
