Full Programme Announced | Doclisboa’19

A glimpse across vast territories, through the most varied artistic voices, in the most diverse times of History and Cinema: this is the line that defines the programme of this year’s edition of Doclisboa.

This morning, at Culturgest, the press conference of Doclisboa’19 took place, in which the full programme of the 17th edition of the festival was presented, in the presence of Cíntia Gil (Direction – Doclisboa), José Ramalho (Directive Council – Culturgest), Manuel Veiga (Municipal Director of Culture – Lisbon Municipal Council) and José Manuel Costa (Director – Portuguese Cinemateca).

The programme this year has 303 films in its reach, 39 world premieres and 45 international premieres divided by competitive and non-competitive sections: International Competition, National Competition, New Visions, From the Earth to the Moon, Heart Beat, Retrospective Jocelyne Saab, Retrospective The Rise and Fall of the Wall – The Cinema of East Germany, Cinema of Urgency, Green Years and Doc Alliance.

The International Competition has 14 films that come from 11 distinct territories. Films with a singular glance over the world (and over cinema), with a formal and aesthetic diversity allied to a positioning in the world that the festival shares. Lisa Reboulleau, Camille Degeye, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Sofia Brito, Manel Raga-Raga, Camila Rodrigues Triana, Jo Sefarty, Frank Beauvais, Christophe Bisson, Welket Bungué, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Wook Steven Heo, Christian Haardt e Daniil Zinchenko are the names that make this programme.

Doclisboa presents 44 Portuguese films in this year’s edition, from which 11 make up the National Competition. In this competition,  Tiago Siopa, Pedro Filipe Marques, Saguenail, José Filipe Costa, Diana Vidrascu, Leonor Noivo, Atsushi Kuwayama, Inês Gil, Miguel de Jesus, Nevena Desivojevic e Luís Brás present us with gestures of freedom, beyond categorisations, that takes us from the intimate into the cosmic, from the poetry to the revolution, to love.

At the press conference, it was also disclosed the programme of the section New Visions: a section in which the festival proposes the discussion of frontiers and boundaries with films from different times, that question cinema’s contemporaneity. This year, it is presented an homage to Barbara Hammer, by some of her closest friends, as well as the last films by Alain Cavalier and James Benning. The invited filmmakers of the section are Ghassan Salhab and Sofia Bohdanowicz and, beyond all thematic programs, the festival brings singular films by young filmmakers: Demons by Daniel Hui, This Film Is About Me, by Alexis Delgado Búrdalo, and When the Persimmons Grew, by Hilal Baydarov. The festival will have the Portuguese premiere of Danses macabres, squelettes et autres fantaisies, by Rita Azevedo Gomes and Pierre Léon, in a section which will, also, summon the voice of Antonin Artaud, in his radiophonic performance in 1947.

One of the news of this year’s edition is the creation of Nebulae: a networking space at Doclisboa that encompasses a group of directional activities for industry. At Nebulae, formerly developed activities in past editions of Doclisboa, are compiled in a single programming space, such as Arché -, as well as new activities – masterclasses, tutorship, criticism and investigative residencies, workshops and meetings -, with the goal of stimulating the meeting of people and dedicated entities to the development of creation, production and promotion of independent cinema.

Doclisboa also presents two new development in the branch of the awarded prizes to winning films: in the National Competition, the Prize Fernando Lopes for Best First Portuguese Film (Midas Filmes and Doclisboa) and, in the section Green Years, the Prize Pedro Fortes for Best Directing Green Years.

The Prize Fernando Lopes for Best Portuguese First Film, attributed by Midas Filmes and Doclisboa, has as its motto of inspiration the spirit of filmmaker Fernando Lopes, one of the great names of Portuguese cinema of the 60s, with his strong connection to the world of documental cinema, his strong influence in the same and his attention, his connection to new cineastes. This Prize will have as its jury Alice Milheiro (Adjunct Director of RTP, that started working at RTP having had the filmmaker as her first director), Margarida Cardoso (filmmaker whose path Fernando Lopes has always kept track of) and Sofia Lopes Machaqueiro (oldest granddaughter of the cineaste and founder of Alvalade Cine Club).

The Prize Pedro Fortes for Best Directing Green Years, that attributes a Participating Scholarship at Doc’s Kingdom Seminar, was created as a tribute to this colleague, to this friend of the festival, that passed away this year. His influence has affected not only the festival, but all its team and the present edition of Doclisboa is dedicated to his memory.

The festival’s programme is now available in the oficial website, and tickets are now for sale.

From 17 to 27 of October, the whole world fits in Lisbon.