Indie Movies Around (Indie)Lisbon - Part4: Making Noise

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).

The Sound of Indie

Different arts can go hand in hand with each other, and IndieLisboa shows that by celebrating the relationship between Cinema and Music. In their category, IndieMusic, they show films that go deep into the subject of the music industry, always passing on the outspoken ideias that musicians are known for. And speaking of outspoken, I’ll also be touching upon Mouth of Madness, a category dedicated to films willing to talk about taboos and the more disconcerting themes, having a voice seldom heard: a mad one.

Official animation for Mouth of Madness, done by Fine Arts (Lisbon) student Catarina Abrantes.

Suggested Viewing - IndieMusic

IndieMusic embraces the connection between filmmakers and musicians, of any genre, not only to make an interesting film but a relevant one also. Having the ideologies, politics and movements of their respective times being the background for it all. The films presented by IndieMusic are from all over the world and expand many generations and themes. Like feminism, with films like Matagu/Maya/M.I.A. (Steve Loveridge, USA, UK) about the incredibly transgressive artist M.I.A.; or Betty - They Say I’m Different (Phil Cox, UK, France) where we see the life of Betty Davis one of the greatest musicians ever, and the queen of funk; for a more punky style they also have two films: Here to Be Heard: The Story of the Slits (William Badly, UK) and L7: Pretend We’re Dead (Sarah Price, USA). There’s also films about waves, like: Desolation Center (Stuart Swezey, USA) which is about the prototype for modern music festivals; Ethiopiques. Revolt of the Soul (Maciek Bochniak, Poland) is about the power that the music has on a country's history; French Waves (Julian Starke, France) takes us on a trip around the ever-growing french electronic music scene, the French Touch. For the interested in portuguese music, there are two documentaries about portuguese Hip Hop: You Can’t Creat the World Twice (Catarina David, Francisco Noronha, Portugal) is about the origins and Hip To Da Hop (António Freitas, Fábio Silva, Portugal) shows its present state. Last mentions: Studio 54 (Matt Tyrnauer, USA), on the best discotheque of the 70’s; Teenage Superstars (Grant McPhee, UK), visits the origin of really important bands of the early 90’s, and Milford Graves Full Mantis (Jake Meginsky, Neil Young, USA) explores the creative process of the music legend.

Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., by Steve Loveridge (2018).

Suggested Viewing - Mouth of Madness

The films on Mouth of Madness are boundary pushing and unafraid of tackling the themes not usually seen on the cinema screen. Like the cannibalistic impulses of Issei Sagawa, in the film Caniba (Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, France), or Funeral Parade of Roses (Toshio Matsumoto, Japan) where we go deep into the night life of drag queens in Japan; or even the short Vanità (Kevin Pontuti, USA) where mirrors show our disgusting insides. But there’s also fun to be had in some of this sessions: Good Manners (Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra, Brazil) and Hard Way (Daniel Vogelmann) poke fun at werewolves and social injustice, and S.W.A.T Teams and terrorism (respectively) by putting them in a musical setting. But the best experience you can have with this category is the Mouth of Madness Marathon, on the 28th (10.30pm) at Cinema Ideal.

Hard Way - The Action Musical, by Daniel Vogelmann (2017).

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:

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