The National Competition returns to IndieLisboa with 8 feature films and 18 short films, in a healthy balance between filmmakers returning to the festival and others making their debut here. This year this section celebrates a record number of titles in competition with a particularly vibrant group of filmmakers, as well as a gesture of permanent questioning of history — and the country — through explicit artistic expression.
We highlight two world premieres, Banzo, by Margarida Cardoso, which follows a doctor from a plantation on a tropical African island who has to cure a group of servants “infected” by Banzo, the nostalgia of slaves; and The Best of All Worlds, by Rita Nunes, a drama set in 2027 about a couple of scientists often at opposite poles, a conflict put to the test on a night in which data analyzed by Marta points to a very high probability that a huge earthquake could hit Lisbon.
Diogo Costa Amarante presents We’re on Air, whose protagonist says she doesn’t feel anything. However, she dreams about the policeman who recently moved into the apartment next door. What all the characters seem to share is the dissolution of their desires into thin air. In Tales of Oblivion, Dulce Fernandes questions Portugal’s role in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans based on recent archaeological finds in Lagos, in the south of Portugal.
In this edition, there is also a section premiere: Rhizome. This section presents a set of films that address relevant current issues, renowned filmmakers, and previews. A mobilizing program that offers a critical perspective on the present around cinema as reflection and debate.
Rizoma is the place to meet and celebrate films with the festival’s large audience.
It is impossible not to mention the unique screening in Portugal of All of Us Strangers, the exciting queer romance by Andrew Haigh that received six BAFTA nominations and total unanimity regarding the performances of Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal. Also worthy of mention, as happened at the last edition of the Berlinale, is No Other Land, a film by a Palestinian collective about the destruction that Israel manages to cause in its attempt to occupy larger swaths of land. The film also highlights the unique alliance between an Israeli journalist and a Palestinian activist. Finally, The Beast, by Bertrand Bonello, combines romance and dystopia, highlighting Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux), a woman who lives in a futuristic society that abhors emotions that exalt human beings.
Brand New is a competitive section for young and emerging filmmakers. Thus, Brand New is for everyone who experiences cinema and not necessarily about age or school.
There is room for thematic and formal diversity, in a selection that covers various artistic expressions, from documentary records such as We Made a Film to more classic narratives, such as the coming-of-age Chuvas de Verão, the experimental cinema of Anima, the feminist animation of Clotilde and even the video clip Sunflowers – A Strange Feeling of Existential Angst.
The festival starts with I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, a film about Libuše Jarcovjáková, the “Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia”, and the suffocating environment experienced after the Prague Spring of 1968. The closing section presents Dream Scenario with which Kristoffer Borgli returns for a new black comedy accompanied by Nicholas Cage. Dream Scenario sees a perfectly ordinary biology professor appearing in many people’s dreams to the point of becoming famous and then to the point of becoming infamous.
All features in the National Competition have descriptive subtitles.
You can still buy Early Bird passbooks here until tomorrow or wait for the box office to open on the 9th.
