06/04/2019 - On the heels of its second-best edition in 2018, IndieLisboa is planning an even more intense focus on national cinema, with 51 Portuguese productions among the 270 selected films

IndieLisboa is gearing up for its 16th edition, which will take place between 2 and 12 May. With a €1,136,648 budget for this year’s edition, the festival has selected 270 films – out of some 4,500 submissions – that will form a vast and diverse programme, which includes one of the biggest showcases of national film output: 51 Portuguese films, broken down into 15 features and 36 shorts.

The national competition will present 23 movies – six features and 17 shorts. Ico Costa’s Alva [+see also:
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film profile] by Tiago Guedes were the films selected for the features competition. The short-film selection includes Jorge Jácome’s Past Perfect (which had its premiere in the 69th Berlinale’s International Short Competition), Fordlândia Malaise by Susana Sousa Dias, Grbavica (Portugal/Spain/Bosnia and Herzegovina) by Manel Raga and Filomena by Pedro Cabeleira, amongst many others.

Several Portuguese flicks are included in some of the non-competitive sections as well. Novíssimos, a section dedicated to new (national) visions and new (Portuguese) filmmakers, will showcase The House and the Dogs by Madalena Fragoso and Margarida Meneses, the only feature film included in this section; Equinox by Bruno Carnide; and Night Tale by Inês Nunes. In the special screenings section, Ivo M Ferreira’s new feature, South, will be presented, while his Empire Hotel [+see also:
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The Independent Hero section will be dedicated to two distant points – both geographically and aesthetically speaking. Firstly, Anna Karina, one of the most recognisable figures from the French New Wave, will have a retrospective dedicated to her at the Cinemateca. The second Independent Hero will tie in with this year’s tendency to focus on Portuguese content – but, more specifically in this case, Portuguese-language content, as there will be a section dedicated to contemporary Brazilian cinema. It will cast a critical eye over one of the biggest and most audacious contemporary film industries in the world, which has reacted, and still is, to political turbulence and social issues through art – and, in particular, cinema. Divine Love [+see also:
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film profile] (Romania/Czech Republic/France/Bulgaria/Germany) as well as a Focus on Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel.

Poggi and Vinel’s first feature film, Jessica Forever [+see also:
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film profile] by Silvia Navarro and Miguel G Morales. The Shorts Competition will present a huge variety of films – and, in particular, several animated titles – which include Take Me Please by Olivér Hegyi, Fest by Nikita Diakur and the Polish film Acid Rain by Tomek Popakul, which will also form part of the festival’s Focus on Polish animated movies.

IndieLisboa will start on 2 May, and the opening ceremony will feature a screening of Harmony Korine’s latest film, The Beach Bum [+see also:
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film profile]. The closing ceremony demonstrates the festival’s close connection to the Berlinale and will show this year’s Golden Bear winner, Synonyms [+see also:
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interview: Nadav Lapid
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