14/10/2009

The 7th DocLisboa, which kicks off tomorrow, will present over 200 titles, among them 10 local feature documentaries in competition. Event director Sergio Tréfaud describes this year as the "age of maturity in Portuguese documentary".

Quite eclectic in their topics, the local titles in competition include Bruno de Almeida's Bobby Cassidy: Counterpuncher, about the professional American boxing champion; Diana Andringa's Dundo, Memória Colonial, about the Angola region where the director was born; Nicholas Oulman's Com Que Voz, on famous fado composer Alan Oulman; and Susana de Sousa Dias's 48, an inquiry into the former political prisoners of the Salazar regime.

International prize-winners also have a place in the festival, among them Fernand Melgar's The Fortress (awarded Locarno 2008); Gianfranco Rosi's Below Sea Level (Horizons Doc Prize – Venice 2008) and Aliona van der Horst's Boris Ryzhy (Silver Wolf Award – Amsterdam Film Festival 2008.

Lithuanian director Jonas Mekas (87) – who since the 1940s has been based in the US, where he became an influential figure of avant-garde cinema – will be on hand to present a retrospective of his work, which will include the recently produced Lithuania and the Collapse of the USSR and An American Film Director at Work: Martin Scorcese.

The festival’s other sidebar sections are: The Balkans in Focus, Risks, Love Stories, Ateliers Varan and Heart Beart. The latter will feature a tribute to late German choreographer Pina Bausch, including Fernando Lopes' Lissabon Wuppertal Lisboa, shot during the 1998 rehearsals of Masurca Fogo.