The twentieth edition of IndieLisboa brings some news in several areas of the festival and in the programming for the industry it could not be different. Besides the Portuguese Film Fund, the Lisbon Screenings and the LisbonTalks, IndieLab, a 3-day face to face scriptwriting workshop, focused on project development, will take place between April 28th and 30th as part of the festival’s program.
During the workshop, the initial idea and motivation, point of view, narrative structure and creative vision of projects under development will be worked on, with the aim of enhancing its insertion in the national and international markets.
One of IndieLab’s priorities is to work on projects whose characters or themes belong to or are somehow related to diverse/minority identity groups, in order to enhance dialogues about inclusion and better representation of these characters in cinema. Narratives that privilege innovative and non-stigmatized representations of characters and that contribute to a new look in cinema, such as the short film An Avocado Pit, by Ary Zara, winner of The Yellow Color New Talent Award and of the Audience Award for Short Film at IndieLisboa last year.
The training will be given by Fernanda Polacow, an experienced Brazilian screenwriter and documentary filmmaker, with a master’s degree in Visual Anthropology.
Submitted projects can be short or feature films, regardless of their genre (fiction, documentary, animation or experimental), in development at the time of application.
The authorship must be Portuguese – writers/directors or foreign authors with permanent residence in Portugal – and/or must be a Portuguese production or co-production (in case of an associated production company). Having an associated production company is not mandatory.
The projects will be reviewed by an appointed IndieLisboa selection committee, as well as the trainer, Fernanda Polacow.
Applications may be submitted until March 3rd at FilmFreeway, where the rules and regulations can be found. If you have any questions, please contact industry@indielisboa.com.