Record number of Portuguese productions at IndieLisboa

by Vitor Pinto

28/03/2012 - With 38 national shorts and features from a grand total of 232 selected films, IndieLisboa 2012 (April 26 to May 6) has never, in its 9-year-long history, programmed so many Portuguese films. It’s good news in the same year that organisers were forced to give up the event’s most emblematic section, Independent Hero, for budget reasons. But the festival is still holding its traditional international competition, and its appetizing parallel sections, among which are a hommage to the 50 years of the Viennale, with five films (one for each of the Austrian film festival’s decades), as well as a special programme dedicated to new Swiss cinema.

Five Portuguese films are competing in the festival’s national competition. They are documentaries A Casa (lit. “At home”) by Júlio Alves (production: Ukbar Filmes) and Jesus por um Dia (lit. “Jesus for a day”) by Helena Inverno y Verónica Castro (O Som e a Fúria), the freeform film by André Almeida, From New York with Love, and two fiction features: the late actor Pedro Hestnes’ last film, Em Segunda Mão directed by Catarina Ruivo (André Valente [film focus]) and produced by David & Golias, and Por Aqui Tudo Bem (lit. “Here all is fine”) filmed in Lisbon by the director of Angloan origin Pocas Pascoal.

Joana Barra Vaz will bring to the IndieMusica section the documentary My Dear Friend Chico (pictured), in which several Portuguese musicians give hommage to Chico Buarque and speak about the great Brasilian musician’s influence on their own music.

Beside six feature films presented in two sections, in the short film competition will be the much-awaited return of the director of Tragic Story with Happy Ending, Regina Pessoa, with Kali, o pequeno vampiro (lit. “Kali, the little vampire”), Cerro Negro by João Salaviza, and Palaces of Pity by Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, already presented at the last Venice Film Festival.

Out of competition, João Salaviza will once more put in an appearance with Rafa, the short that won him a Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the last Berlinale (read more). The director of Blood of my Blood, João Canijo, will present the documentary Raul Brandão era um grande escritor (lit. “Raul Brandão was a great writer”), made as part of the Guimarães European Capital of Culture initiative and produced by Midas Filmes, while João Mário Grilo is back with the documentary A Vossa Casa (produced by Cinemate and Costa do Castelo Filmes).

Bande à Part, the Swiss filmmakers association that brings together Ursula Meier, Lionel Baier, Jean-Stéphane Bron, and Frédéric Mermoud, will also have another retrospective at the event, which will present a total of 11 shorts and nine features, including Sister [trailer, film focus] by Ursula Meier, recently awarded at the Berlinale.

(Translated from Spanish)