Indie ‘outside the box’

From the already emblematic Mouth of Madness section to the pool sessions, IndieLisboa continues to show that a film festival can surprise beyond just the films.

Indie Date

The blind date experience (romantic or not), which took place for the first time last year with good attendance, is back to bring together moviegoers and “counter the trend that everything is done online”. The premise is “to promote direct contact between people who, by having company to watch the film, can then talk and share ideas in person”, says Susana Santos Rodrigues, emphasizing that the aim is to “try to make the physical experience in a cinema don’t be forgotten.”

Participation in this Indie Date implies the purchase of a ticket to watch Andrew Haigh’s latest film, All of us Strangers, with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, in a unique screening in a theater in Portugal. Candidates for Indie Date are invited to answer a questionnaire, through which the festival’s “compatibility department” identifies the affinities between those registered, measuring the harmony in order to create the best matches so that the ending is happy.

Cinema at the Pool

The Penha de França Swimming Pool is transformed into a floating cinema room, similar to what happened in 2023. The first edition of the event had great participation and, this year, it is repeated with a program of short films for families and, for the first time, two feature films for adults.

All programmed works are based on the element of water in their theme. Susana Santos Rodrigues highlights the evening sessions where two classic films are shown: Palombella Rossa, a political satire, directed and performed by Nanni Moretti, about an amnesiac communist leader who is also a water polo player; and Piranha, a cult parody directed by Joe Dante, where genetically altered and deadly piranhas terrorize a summer resort bathed by a beautiful lake.

Mouth of Madness Marathon

The most daring section of the festival, Mouth of Madness, where terror, sarcasm and adrenaline mix, brings something new: a marathon session that starts at 11pm on May 31 and ends at six in the morning the following day.

The most daring public is invited to spend the night at Cinema Ideal and watch a program that includes short and feature films. Among them, Late Night with the Devil, by Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes, stands out, which reveals a lost recording of a Halloween episode, from a 1977 talkshow, where the interviewees are a parapsychologist and a girl who appears to be the only one survivor of a satanic church mass suicide; and Cobweb, by Korean Jee-Woon Kim, a comedy about a director who decides to imprison his film’s critics until he produces a masterpiece.

7 films “outside the box” + 2 surprise films

From the vast programme and at the request of the Lisbon Agenda Cultural, Susana Santos Rodrigues also suggests seven films not to be missed.

One of them, in the opening session: I’m Not Everything I Want to be, a portrait of photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, nicknamed “Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia”, an unconventional figure who together with director Klára Tasovská come to Lisbon to present the documentary. Another is the closing film: Dream Scenario, by director Kristoffer Borgli, author of one of the sensational films of the last edition, Fed Up with Myself, with Nicholas Cage playing an insignificant biology professor who, suddenly, becomes famous for appearing in the dreams of many people.

No Other Land, made by a Palestinian collective, about the destruction that Israel causes in its attempt to occupy larger swathes of land; Fidai Film, by Kamal Aljafari, which rebels against the theft of memories from a country, Palestine; Rotting In The Sun, by Sebastián Silva, a film with enormous sarcasm, which nevertheless has incredibly moving moments; The Afterlight, by Charlie Shackleton, where dead actors from all over the world come back to life creating a cast of angels and ghosts; La Chimera, by Alice Rohrwacher, which follows an archaeologist in search of ancient treasures and impossible desires; The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed, by Joanna Arnow, who directs, stars in, writes and edits her first feature film, a comical mosaic of experiences and finally, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, by Alex Gibney, about the musician and composer, Paul Simon, complete the list of recommendations.

For the first time, two surprise films are also scheduled to be shown on the last weekend of the festival and about which information will only be available closer to the screening date. Two well-kept secrets to challenge the most curious.

Knitting at the Festival

Susana Santos Rodrigues also highlights an unlikely moment of Knitting at the Festival, which has as its starting point the screening of the film Between Rocks and Clouds, by Franco García Becerra. “This beautiful feature film that takes place in Peru tells the story of an eight-year-old boy, a lover of family, football and nature, who is an alpaca herder.” Parallel to the screening of the film, Indie invited a local knitting club, interested parties and enthusiasts of working with yarn, to teach spectators of all ages how to knit, with needles or their fingers.

The rest of the festival programme and more details about these suggestions are available here.