The international competition of short films holds 49 films divided into ten programs. Aiming at following the growth of the directors that have been selected by indieLisboa we welcome the return of awarded directors in the festival like Kiro Russo (Nueva Vida), winner of the grand prize for short film in 2011, Filipe Abranches (Chatear-me-ia morrer tão joveeeeem…), awarded best portuguese director of a short film in 2009 and Réka Bucsi with the most antecipated new film Love, after winning a mention for best animated film in 2015. Also repeaters are Maria Alché (Gulliver) and Pedro Peralta (Ascensão), while Leonor Teles and his militant film Balada de um Batráquio and Mónica Lima (Viktoria), return to IndieLisboa, but for the first time in international competition. We focus also the films that approach and reflect, in original and audacious angles that only cinema can give, on very close and actual subjects like the refugees that await slowly for a new life in Tout le monde aime le bord de la mer, by Keina Espiñeira, the Paris bombings in Nos champs by Baptiste Ribrault, the North Korean conflict The Reflection of Power by Mihai Grécu or the danger that is hidden beneath the anonymous online commentaries in Rate Me by Fyzal Boulifa. Since the scope of genres and subjects is constant in IndieLisboa there is also space for films that dare to tease and to entertain us through sarcasm and irony like the nerds in Retarded 2 (Lucas Doméjean), the interpretation of Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, by Jim Cummings, or the film with an endless loop of John Travolta singing in Grease in Craving For Narrative de Max Grau. I got chills, they’re multiplying And I’m losing control ‘Cause the power, you’re supplying It’s electrifying!
