The Heart Beat section of Doclisboa’18 features films dedicated to the arts, through a selection bursting with great characters and stories from all over the world.
This includes two great ladies of the punk movement: Joan Jett, star of Kevin Kerslake’s Bad Reputation, and iconic fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, whom director Lorna Tucker presents in Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. Director Tucker will be one of Doclisboa’s guests.
At the Heart Beat opening session, we make room for Chilly Gonzalez in Philipp Jedicke’s Shut Up and Play the Piano, which presents a portrait of the virtuoso Grammy-winning composer and pianist; a musician who has collaborated and inspired figures such as Feist, Jarvis Cocker, Peaches, Daft Punk and Drake.
In Mstislav Rostropovitch, The Indomitable Bow, we find another talented musician, in an intimate portrait one of the most famous cellists in the world. Director Bruno Monsaingeon, who is also a musician, will attend the screening of the film.
We move on to jazz with Sophie Huber’s Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes, which explores the vision behind the iconic US jazz record label, responsible for artists like John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Norah Jones.
Big bands also reside in Heart Beat, as we revisit Depeche Mode 101, a documentary following the adventures of and journey of Depeche Mode and their fans’ to the epic 101st concert of the band’s 1987-88 world tour, “Music for the Masses”, directed by D. A. Pennebaker.
César Paes will come to Doclisboa’18 to present Songs for Madagasgar, a film which closely follows the creative work of a group of Malagasy musicians whilst also acting as a wake up call about the island’s fragile ecology. The film enters into dialogue with the previously announced Fahavalo, Madagascar 1947, by Marie-Clémence Andriamonta Paes (in festival section From the Earth to the Moon).
Country music is also part of Heart Beat’s programme through The Unicorn, a film centered on Peter Gruzdien, the solitary musical force behind the first psychedelic album of openly homosexual country music. The filmmakers, Isabelle Dupuis and Tim Geraghty, will attend the festival.
Portuguese Fado journeys from Lisbon’s streets to its screen with the world premiere of Vadio, by Stefan Lechner, who over many years has accompanied the course and singular saudade of Portugal’s musical movement. Stefan Lechner will be one of the festival’s guests.
Four Seasons and Autumn, by Pedro Sena Nunes, will also be screened as a world premiere – a film that pays homage to writer, essayist and theatre director Jorge Listopad, with testimonials from Listopad himself, alongside colleagues, artists, alumni and friends.
William Friedkin, a landmark of cinema, is doubly present in Heart Beat. The People Vs. Paul Crump, his first film, will be presented in a restored version to celebrate the beginning of Friedkin’s now over 40 year career. It is accompanied by Francesco Zippel’s Friedkin Uncut, which offers an introspective glimpse into the director’s life and artistic career.
Cinema itself is also celebrated with Deux, Trois Fois Branco, in which director Boris Nicot presents a portrait of Portuguese producer Paulo Branco, between Lisbon and Paris, visiting iconic places and the directors he produced, such as Manoel de Oliveira, João César Monteiro and Raul Ruiz.
In the program 3e Scène – Opéra National de Paris we present a project that invited several artists to create works related to the universe of the Paris National Opera. The result is six short films, showing the visions of artists Clément Cogitore, Danielle Arbid, Mathieu Amalric, Jean-Stéphane Bron, Claude Lévêque and Thierry Thieu Niang, through whom we discover new dimensions to this mythical institution.
There is also room for an Olympic champion, Margarita Manum, a Russian gymnast whom we follow in Marta Prus’ Over the Limit, a film that shows us how the Russian training system defies all limitations.
With the energy left, we dance with Bruk Out!, a Cori Wapnowski film that plunges directly into the world of dancehall, the popular Jamaican musical style, accompanying six powerful women – the Dancehall Queens – as they prepare to compete for dancehall’s greatest trophy.
