Indie Movies Around (Indie)Lisbon - Bonus

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).

Party Like Your Indie

Through these articles I’ve covered all the categories of IndieLisboa, but still the festival has more (extra) content to offer the viewers. From special talks and workshops, to more great screenings and even to concerts and parties! This article is on all those subjects, the “bonus” added to the main Indie experience: LisbonTalks, Film-Concert, Special Screenings and IndieByNight!

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

Suggested Attending - LisbonTalks

The LisbonTalks are very compelling gatherings that are perfect for anyone who want to get more knowledge on the art of filmmaking, or just what to discuss cinema. With talks by this year’s Independent Heroes; a Masterclass on Sound Mixing and Post-Production by The Wall Collective Studio, a portuguese post-production agency that has worked before with IndieLisboa; a Cinema Lesson, with famed film critic Boyd van Hoeij, by analyzing the film The Living World, by Eugène Green, and two talks, one on the Power of Cinema as a Force of Freedom that invites some of the directors whose works are being present during the festival to speak on the political power of film, and the last one is to Wrap Up this year’s festival before the winners of the competitions are announced, it’s a real concern on the part of the organizers of this event that the voice of film critics is heard and discuss the overall experience of the year’s presentation.

Suggested Attending - Film-Concerts

This year, for IndieLisboa, John Parish, acclaimed composer and musician (who has worked with many great musicians, like PJ Harvey or Aldous Harding), is having a special Film-Concert event, where him and his talented musicians perform his work, Screenplay. Screenplay consists on projecting excerpts of films and accompanying them with live music performed by Parish and his band. This awesome concert is occurring in Porto and in Lisbon. IndieJúnior also has a special Film-Concert session named Strá… Tum… Pschh.

Suggested Viewing - Special Screenings

Special Screenings have a lot of content packed in them! From various works from portuguese directors making a special premiere, like the film Rage (Sérgio Tréfaut), about the wealth disparity in Alentejo during the 50’s; the first two episodes of the series Sara (Marco Martins), telling the story of a dramatic film actress that sees her inspiration and love for film vanish and seeks it in Soap Operas; or two short films about the famous portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, How Many Times Have You Dreamt About Me? (Júlia Buisel) and The Passenger (Lucas de Matos) There is also a very important retrospective on the cinema produced in Macau, containing a series of shorts (Histórias de Macau), a feature, The Last Roar of a Mother Bear (Doug Chan, Macau) and a performance called My Macau (António-Pedro) that combines cinema, music and theater.

Sara, by Marco Martins (2018)

Suggested Attending - IndieByNight

IndieByNight has a strong connection with the category IndieMusic. There are parties dedicated to the hip-hop rhythms of Hip To Da Hop, the punk-rock sounds of Desolation Center, the avant-garde free jazz of Milford Graves Full Mantis and a disco-party à la Studio 54, all on Casa Independente. Besides those fantastic sounding parties there is also the big Closing Ceremony Party! Some of theses celebrations are free, some you have to pay a small amount for, but the last party is free and it promises to tear down the walls at Culturgest!

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: