The monstrous body. Or: the body, that monster. The Mouth of Madness section opens up to swallow the world of our desires, dreams and nightmares.
La californie is a film about the obsessive relationship between a man and his girlfriend, who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. The director shoots all the time, using several different ways to compose his diary, from a hidden camera to drones and selfie sticks. However, the fascination is overtaken by an excessive obsession about the body.
La californie is being screened on April 22nd at 21h and April 26th at 19h at Cinema Ideal.
In Brothers of the Night the body is the merchandise. The film by the Austrian Patric Chiha takes inspiration from characters by Pasolini and Fassbinder in order to document a group of brothers that make a living selling their body in bars. In this documentary, with re-enacted scenes, Chiha shoots the excesses, the drinking, the dancing and the conversations about “the business” while they wait for customers. Brothers of the Night is being shown on April 21st and April 23rd at Cinema Ideal. The two screenings are scheduled for 21h.
Evolution deals with the subject of motherhood and puberty seen through the lens of the fantastic short story. Nicholas, a 10-year-old boy, lives with his mother on a remote island where only women and small boys like him live. He suspects that his mother is lying and notices the treatments that the other children are being subjected to in a sinister hospital close to the sea. In this sensorial trip, nothing is what it looks like. Evolution is screened on April 30th at 22h15 at Cinema Ideal. A film by Lucile Hadžihalilovic, collaborator of the controversial Gaspar Noé, who brings Love to IndieLisboa, a 3D experience that explores the intimacy of a couple. After Irreversible and Enter the Void, Noé recovers an old project, trying to capture in the touch and friction between bodies a tridimensionality that has only been suggested in his previous films. Love is showing on April 24th at 21h45, at Cinema São Jorge.
In A Monster With a Thousand Heads, the monster is a form of bureaucracy. When a woman notices that her insurance company is trying to avoid approving a treatment for her sick husband, she tries to resolve the problem the hard way. In a struggle against bureaucracy and corruption – the “monster of one thousand heads”, or the great enterprises that distort human rights just to obtain profit – Sonia only holds two things: a gun and her despair. A Monster With a Thousand Heads is being shown on April 26th at 21h at Cinema Ideal and in the all night film marathon scheduled in this section.
In the much-anticipated The Witch it is the family that works as a disintegrating body – that turns itself into a monster. The first feature film by Robert Eggers, who won the Best Director prize in Sundance, deals with the echoes of puritan repression and the hunting of witches in New England in the midst of the seventeenth century. William and Katherine live a very Christian and quiet life with their five children. When the youngest one, freshly born, disappears, the family starts to fall apart and descends into the depths of religious hysteria, of black magic and sorcery. The Witch is being shown on April 22nd at 19h at Cinema São Jorge and in the film marathon of this section.
The Lobster is the most recent film by the Greek Yorgos Lanthimos, a filmmaker of the body – as shown by films like Canino or Alpis – who here takes us to a dystopian future, where bachelors are taken, according to the city laws, to the Hotel. There, they have to find a partner during 45 days or their destination is the woods, where they are turned into wild animals. Colin Farrell is the protagonist of this story about loneliness. The Lobster is showing on May 1st at 21h45, at Cinema São Jorge.
In Der Nachtmahr, Tina, a young woman, hallucinates about a strange body that she sees after a rave party which she attended with some friends. In this film inspired by ET and Rosemary’s Baby there’s a question that imposes itself, even before we know if the monster is a product of her imagination or not. What kind of symbology is hidden in this new friendship: madness, growing up and imagination? Der Nachtmahr is showing on April 21st at 23h, at Cinema Ideal and the film marathon of the section.
How can we embody a memory that will not go away? For instance, re-enacting each detail of that memory. Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala did that in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Between the period when they were 12 and 19 years old, the two brothers almost finished their labour of love. However, one scene was not shot – the one of the fight in an airplane. Thirty years later, with the help of crowdfunding, they got to shoot the scene. This is the story behind the biggest fan film ever done. Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaption is showing on April 21st and 23rd at Cinema Ideal. Both screenings are at 21h.
Through the presence of John Carpenter, the best memory of horror cinema is summoned. The Pupped Man, by Jacqueline Castel, is one of the main shorts in the Mouth of Madness section. It is the story of a serial killer that hunts a young woman and her friends which is personally validated by the presence of the father of slasher films: John Carpenter. The “Prince of Darkness” gives us a film by Castel with a cameo and, in the soundtrack, some of the tunes of his recent album Lost Themes. This short from the Mouth of Madness Shorts programme is showing on April 22nd and April 26th at Cinema Ideal. The two screenings are at 23h.
The film marathon with films from this section is taking place on April 23rd at Cinema Ideal and will start at 23h30. At the end of the night prepared for the most enduring of spectators, Robert Eggers’ The Witch will be screened.