sabout the twentieth edition, whose full program was announced today, Susana Santos Rodrigues, one of the three directors of the festival, recalled the “pre-availability of programmers to look for new voices, new ways of doing things, new ways of telling a story, aesthetically, formally”.
A few days before the start, it is almost a puzzle to schedule sessions for more than 300 films chosen for editing and which also reflect “a little bit of the state of the world”, explained Carlos Ramos, another of the directors of the event.
“I think there is a theme that we feel stands out in the festivals we’ve been going to, which are gender issues. It’s a theme that perhaps in other years has been present in a more subtle way, but that this year is present in a marked way “, said Susana Santos Rodrigues.
From this perspective, we highlight the opening film, “Something you said last night”, the first work by the Italian-Canadian director Luis De Filippis and whose story goes beyond gender identity issues, or even the premiere of “Orlando, ma biographie politique “, by the Spanish essayist Paul B. Preciado, based on the homonymous work by Virgínia Woolf and with the participation of trans and non-binary people.
On gender issues, and without wanting to narrow the theme of IndieLisboa, Carlos Ramos and Susana Santos Rodrigues also revealed that this year a prize was created, in partnership with the association Mutim – Mulheres Trabalhadoras das Imagens em Movimento, and a laboratory was created to to develop projects “that contradict the stereotype of characters and more conventional and stereotyped stories within cinema”.
From this year’s programming, the national competition will feature more than twenty films, such as “Rosinha and other wild animals”, by Marta Pessoa, “India”, the first feature by Telmo Churro, the diptych “Mal Viver” and “Viver Mal”, by João Canijo, and the short films “Dildotectónica”, by Tomás Paula Marques, “Pátio do Carrasco”, by André Gil Mata, and “Afever de Maria João”, by the brothers Afonso and Bernardo Rapazote.
Out of competition, highlight goes to “First work”, by Rui Simões, “a veteran documentary filmmaker who got support for a debut in fiction after 40 years of attempts”.
The announced program also contains a focus dedicated to “Work and the trade union movement”, anticipating the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, with a choice that includes films by António Campos, Manoel de Oliveira, Harun Farocki or Ben Russell.
According to Carlos Ramos, the 2024 edition of IndieLisboa will be dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the end of the dictatorship, but everything is still open.
What is certain is that the organization will change the usual festival dates, scheduling it from May 23 to June 2, 2024.
Still on the 20th edition, Susana Santos Rodrigues and Carlos Ramos underlined the objective of reinforcing the aspect of contact between cinema and audiovisual professionals.
“This year there is an increase in activities, there will be a co-production forum, there is an increase in industry activities, because there was this support for the networks of the European Union”, they explained, giving as an example the recent Smart7, a network of seven festivals European films, created to encourage “the transnational circulation” of European films.
With no circulation restrictions due to covid-19, IndieLisboa will again have a greater presence of programmers from other festivals, they said.
This year, IndieLisboa will once again occupy Cinema São Jorge, Culturgest, Cinemateca Portuguesa and Cinema Ideal, adding Cinema Fernando Lopes – a movie theater located at Universidade Lusófona – and the swimming pool at Penha de França, where there will be three sessions in which spectators can be in the water watching movies.
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