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FESTIVALS Portugal

DocLisboa is back with 250 films for its 12th edition

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- Ten days of documentaries from 40 countries at a festival opened by Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan and closed by Socialism, the last film by the late Peter von Bagh

DocLisboa is back with 250 films for its 12th edition
Socialism by Peter von Bagh

While hopes are climbing ever higher for the first edition of PortoPostDoc, scheduled to take place in December, the countdown has begun for DocLisboa. The unmissable documentary film event, directed by Cíntia Gil and Augusto M Seabra, is returning to the Portuguese capital for its 12th edition between 16 and 26 October, boasting a programme that will screen 250 films from 40 countries.

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The honour of opening the festival is entrusted to the Ukrainian-Dutch co-production Maidan [+see also:
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by Sergei Loznitsa, while Socialism, Peter von Bagh’s swan song, will round off the event as a tribute to him. The Finnish director, critic and film historian, who passed away in September (read more), was a regular attendee at the festival and even chaired the international jury at the 2011 edition.

Nine feature films will be competing in the international section of DocLisboa, including two French productions – Letters to Max [+see also:
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by Eric Baudelaire, and The Sound Before the Fury by Lola Frederich and Martin Sarrazac – the Italian title The Secret [+see also:
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by Cyop & Kaf, Denmark’s Pine Ridge [+see also:
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by Anna Eborn and the Portuguese movie Lisbon Revisited [+see also:
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, the Fernando Pessoa-esque delirious 3D frenzy of a film by Edgar Pêra, which was premiered at the latest Locarno Film Festival and will now be screened for the first time in Portugal.

The national competition section reflects the spirit of resistance exhibited by the directors within the documentary genre, who carry on producing their films despite the obstacles they encounter when editing and gaining exposure for their projects. João Vladimiro, whose experimental movie Lacrau hit screens in the last week of September, is back with Wool and Snow, a film that depicts choreographer Madalena Victorino’s creative process. Manuel Mozos (4 Hearts) will present the documentary João Bénard da Costa – Others Will Love the Things I loved, which focuses on the legendary director of the Portuguese Film Museum. Jorge Pelicano will be in attendance with Suddenly My Thoughts Halt, filmed in a psychiatric hospital. The competition also features Trading Cities by Luísa Homem and Pedro Pinho, Blue Flor by Raul Domingues, Mio Pang Fei by Pedro Cardeira, and (Be)Longing by João Pedro Plácido.

Standing out among the myriad parallel sections are the Heart Beat section, which will kick off with a documentary by Bruno de Almeida about the singer Camané, and in which audiences will be able to (re)discover films such as Die Generalprobe, a portrait of the dress rehearsal of the seminal Café Muller by Pina Bausch, directed by Werner Schroeter. There will also be room for a comprehensive retrospective of the works of Johan van der Keuken (read more) and for a special sidebar that bridges the gap between Italian neo-realism and the so-called “new realisms”, bringing together big names like Italy’s Visconti and Rossellini, Portugal’s Pedro Costa and Teresa Villaverde, the Philippines’ Lino Brocka, and Romania’s Cristi Puiu in the same section.

In addition to the screenings, there will also be a series of parallel events: among these will be master classes with Spaniard Miquel Martí Freixas and the USA’s Tracy Holder, a filmmaking Lab, and the Lisbon Docs forum, where 22 projects will be presented during pitching sessions on 17 and 18 October (read more).

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(Translated from Spanish)

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