doclisboa 2007

programme > october 25

programme day-by-day

18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

october 25 - thursday

25 Oct. 16.30 - Culturgest (Large Auditorium)
21 Oct. 18.30 - Cinema Londres (Room 1)
In the House of Angels [VN]
Margreth Olin
97´ Norway 1998

“In the House of Angels” explores everyday life in the Sandeheim home for the elderly in Norway. The film provides suggestive insight into an issue rarely dealt with in such a sensible and respectful way. The characters get close to the camera, and once they are alone with the film crew, they use it as an intimate friend to whom they can confess, express their despair, or confide their opinions. This film is a much-needed hymn to old age portrayed with warmth and humour, but it also questions the idea of the Welfare State. Does this seeming inability to incorporate humanity in the daily lives of these people mean that the idea of the welfare state has failed?

25 Oct. 18.30 - Culturgest (Large Auditorium)
22 Oct. 16.00 - Cinema Londres (Room 2)
Arquitectura de peso [P]
Edgar Pêra
24´ Portugal 2007

Following a demand from the first Lisbon Architecture Trienal, director Edgar Pêra latest film shows four important architectural events that “projected” Portugal into Europe: Belém’s Cultural Centre – where 14 years ago Portugal first presided the EEC; Parque das Nações – where Expo 98 took place; (10) Football Stadiums – built for Euro 2004; and Casa da Música – originally designed for Oporto, European Capital of Culture 2001.

25 Oct. 18.30 - Culturgest (Large Auditorium)
22 Oct. 16.00 - Cinema Londres (Room 2)
Lisboa dentro [P]
Muriel Jaquerod and Eduardo Saraiva Pereira
56´ Portugal/Switzerland 2007

In the city of Lisbon, ten thousand buildings are dilapidated according to the authorities. Six hundred and fifty renovation projects are going on these days. Working for the City or the newly created Urban Rehabilitation Companies, architects, jurists, social workers visit the apartments and meet with the owners, tenants and promoters. Within the buildings the film captures the confrontation of these different worlds. Cities are made of people and they have their own stories, their own things to tell.

25 Oct. 21.00 - Culturgest (Large Auditorium)
21 Oct. 18.00 - Cinema Londres (Room 2)
Santa Fe Street [CI]
Carmen Castillo
163´ France/Chile/Belgium 2007

October 5, 1974. Chile. Calle Santa Fe, in the Santiago suburbs. Carmen Castillo, 6 months pregnant, is badly injured and her partner Miguel Enriquez, head of the resistance against Pinochet's dictatorship, is killed in combat. So begins “Calle Santa Fe”, a journey into the memories of the defeated, a journey undertaken without self-indulgence or complacency; a narrative driven by the question: Were these acts of resistance worth their terrible cost? Did Miguel die in vain?

25 Oct. 11.00 - Culturgest (Small Auditorium)
19 Oct. 22.30 - Cinema Londres (Room 2)
Suckers [VN]
John Webster
57´ Finland 1993

“Suckers” is a portrayal of Finland during the recession of the early 1990’s that is delightful to watch, yet makes you shiver at the same time. Undoubtedly influenced by “Salesman” (1968), the classic Albert and David Maysles documentary, the film concentrates on following the daily grind of three door-to-door vacuum cleaner salespeople. Kristiina is a tenacious and ruthless top seller, who talks single mothers into buying. Heimo is a Karelian with a jovial way of speech, who gets by in his work. The unemployed car mechanic Kimmo has only just started in his new profession and doesn’t seem to get a single vacuum cleaner sold. This gallery of characters is completed by the salespeople’s aggressive boss, who lacks every bit of understanding for those who are unsuccessful.

25 Oct. 11.00 - Culturgest (Small Auditorium)
19 Oct. 22.30 - Cinema Londres (Room 2)
The Stars Caravan [VN]
Arto Halonen
56´ Denmark/Finland 2000

The Soviet Union developed the Kyrgyz Nomadic Cinema as a propaganda weapon, taking specially selected films by cars and horse caravans to the nomads of the rugged mountain regions. The collapse of the system and the shift to market economy following independence saw the end of the travelling cinema and a move from Soviet propaganda to American B-movie violence. In eastern Kyrgyzstan, in the small town of Naryn, the two cinema projectionists and protagonists, Zarylbek and Myrat, represent different eras and ways of thinking. The older projectionist, Zarylbek, yearns for the Soviet system and the travelling cinema culture, whereas Murat has grown up in the new capitalist world and is more interested in western culture.

25 Oct. 14.15 - Culturgest (Small Auditorium)
23 Oct. 22.30 - Cinema Londres (Room 2)
The halfmoon files [I]
Philip Scheffner
87´ Germany 2007

The phonograph recordings produced at the Halfmoon Camp were the result of a unique alliance between the military, the scientific community and the entertainment industry. Like a memory game, Philip Scheffner’s film uncovers pictures and sounds that revive the ghosts of the past. Those who pressed the record button on the phonographs, on photo and film cameras, were the ones to write official history. Mall Singh and the other prisoners of war of the Halfmoon Camp disappeared from history. Their spirits and ghostly appearances seem to play with the filmmaker, to ambush him. They pursue him on his path, to bring their voices back to their home countries. Yet the story of these ghosts escapes the control of the narrator. And the ghosts do not disperse.

25 Oct. 16.15 - Culturgest (Small Auditorium)
22 Oct. 16.30 - Cinema Londres (Room 1)
5-7 rue Corbeau [I]
Thomas Pendzel
59´ France 2007

From the outside it was a normal building. 168 one-room dwellings, inhabited by newly arrived immigrants to Paris. Mid-nineteenth century tenants were rural French, followed by Belgians, Italians, Eastern European Jews, Spaniards, Portuguese, and repatriates, North Africans, Senegalese and finally Malians. By 1998 the building had become the largest slum house in Paris. Its 350 occupants blocked the street four months with a protesting camp; the rundown tenement was bought and torn-down by city authorities. “5-7 rue Corbeau” sets out to observe a bounded microcosm, but it ultimately provides the foundations for further reflection on urban life, city dwellings, exile and the eventuality of turning a film into a space of memory.

25 Oct. 20.45 - Culturgest (Small Auditorium)
Lost, Lost, Lost [DF]
Jonas Mekas
180´ USA 1976

Jonas Mekas explored his own remarkable story in “Lost Lost Lost”, a feature-length "diary film" compiled from footage Mekas shot informally between 1949 (when he first arrived in the United States as a "displaced person" after fleeing Lithuania during World War II) and 1963 (when he moved downtown to Manhattan and fell in with a bohemian crowd, including Allen Ginsberg and LeRoi Jones, that encouraged his passion for the arts). The film explores both Mekas’ efforts to make a life for himself in his new home and his sense of wonder at the possibilities of life in New York City.

25 Oct. 21.30 - Cinema São Jorge (Room 1)
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait [RE]
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno
90´ France 2004

Directed by two video artists whose work has investigated the limits of the cinematographic image, “Zidane” turns the rules of the traditional television coverage of a football match inside out by focussing the viewer’s full attention on a single player – and disregarding the outcome of the match entirely. For 90 minutes, we’ll only be able to look at Zidane’s body. Defined by the directors as the portrait of a working man, “Zidane” is not as much a film about one of the most remarkable footballers of his generation as a film about a man 100% devoted to his job.

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