Indie Movies Around (Indie)Lisbon - Part2: Newcomers

Besides music festivals, Lisbon also has a lot of film festivals! To all those into filmmaking, especially independent films, IndieLisboa is unmissable. IndieLisboa is an international festival which occurs in the months of April and/or May (April 26th to May 6th this year). It’s incredibly diverse, dividing it’s presentations by various categories and venues. It has works of young indie directors on the big screens of Culturgest and retrospectives of established directors shown on the intimate screen of Cinemateca (without missing the ocasional party in-between).

Culturgest (Lisbon)

R. Arco do Cego 77, 1000-020 Lisboa, Portugal

Cinemateca Portuguesa - Museu do Cinema

R. Barata Salgueiro 39, 1250-195 Lisboa, Portugal

Celebrate the Indie Spirit

This article is on three IndieLisboa’s categories: Brand New, Silvestre and IndieJúnior. These categories all have one common important thing to the Indie Spirit - Youth! Not just in age, but in the notion of trying something new. Brand New is a competition only for new portuguese directors. Silvestre is dedicated to originality and experimentation. And IndieJúnior is for the younger crowd.

Official animation for IndieJúnior, done by Fine Arts (Lisbon) student Gabriela Fial.

Suggested Viewing - Brand New

Brand New doesn’t boast a big repertoire, but it’s still an interesting category! IndieLisboa goes out of it’s way to support the art of filmmaking, showing films done by students, or just by people who wanted to create a film. The only feature length film is Childhood, Boyhood, Youth (Rúben Gonçalves). It’s about the different stages we go in life when we’re still learning about our inspirations and what we’re going to do in life. A beautiful premise put in action bye students in the National Conservatory Dance School. All other films are shorts, and Brand News has a lot of interesting ones: Armindo and the Dark Chamber (Tânia Dinis), where a photographer's life is present is his own pictures; Fauna (Lúcia Pires) a film about a man trying to hunt a legendary forest creature everyone says is impossible to catch.

Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, by Rúben Gonçalves (2018).

Suggested Viewing - Silvestre

Silvestre has a lot a films in its roster! This category has many different genres: Waiting for the Barbarians (Eugène Green, France) is a satire of today’s dependence on technology; The Trial (Maria Ramos, Brazil, Netherlands, Germany) goes deep into the process that led to Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment amidst the chaos of brazilian politics; The Four Sisters (Claude Lanzmann, France), where one of France’s top documentary filmmakers interviews jewish women that survived the holocaust; Les Sept Déserteurs ou la Guerre en Vrac and Train de Vies les Voyages d’Angélique (Paul Vecchiali, France), are two very different movies by the same director, who is no stranger to IndieLisboa. The first film occurs during a war but instead of a battlefield, the characters meet in the woods. The second is premiering in IndieLisboa, and it details the interactions of people who meet while traveling by train.

Les Sept Déserteurs ou la Guerre en Vrac, by Paul Vecchiali (2018).

The short films in Silvestre are also interesting: Braguino (Clement Cogitore, France) details the life of the two only families in a Siberian forest, and their feud; Personal Truth (Charlie Lyne, UK) is a study on the phenomenon of Fake News; Stay Ups (Joanna Rytel, Sweden) is about a mom trying to have a normal sex life.

Braguino, by Clement Cogitore (2017).

Suggested Attending - IndieJúnior

IndieLisboa takes pride in IndieJúnior. This is one the categories with the most sessions and every year the Festival strives the educate young viewers about film. The list is really extensive in this section, and mostly shorts, so I’m not going to list the films you should see with your children. But IndieLisboa offers more than just films! It has Activities, Family Workshops and even a special Film-Concert session were two drummers play live the soundtrack of classic silent era films, Chess Fever (Vsevolod Pudovkin, Russia) and Cops (Buster Keaton, USA).

In a Nutshell, by Fabio Friedli (2017).

These are just some of the amazing works you can see in IndieLisboa! They are spread all around Lisbon in different cinemas and some even play multiple times during the festival, so be sure to check the calendar and enjoy this indie experience!

Here are some other venues where the festival takes place:

Cinema São Jorge

Av. da Liberdade 175, 1250-096 Lisboa, Portugal

Cinema Ideal

Rua do Loreto 15, 1200-241 Lisboa, Portugal

Biblioteca Palácio Galveias

Campo Pequeno 57A, 1000-020 Lisboa, Portugal

Official animation for the Festival, done by Fine Arts (Lisbon) student and Itinari editor Vasco Casula.