Nowadays documentary and fiction are abandoning mapped territories, to decide whether to expand or remain faithful to the traditional languages in their origin.
In this sense, the Silvestre section, faithful to its free-spirited nature, again confirms itself in the 2018 edition, as a privileged field for independent cinema with the creation of a competition with its own jury.
The same freedom is reflected in this year’s program of short and feature films showing an intense twelve months of production. Coming back to this section are some of the directors that were a part of IndieLisboa’s past and others who we believe will be part of its future.
The unpredictable Radu Jude uses Tara Moarta to address the topic of anti-Semitism in Romania in the 1930s and 1940s, and to mirror – through his intelligent eyes – human cruelty. An antidote to sadness can be found in Nobuhiro Suwa‘s Le Lion est mort ce soir, the sweetest and most beautiful death of Jean-Pierre Léaud on screen. We return to the soju and to the clear observation of Hong Sang-soo in Grass, to listen to conversations over coffee that reveal patterns of behavior and relationships. In Readers, James Benning gives us an opportunity to appreciate the quietness and tranquility of reading a book.
Still in the feature films, we invite the public to rediscover the cinema of Matjaz Ivanisin in Playing Men, and Anthea Kennedy and Ian Wiblin in Four Parts of a Folding Screen.
In the short films, we highlight Painting with Joan by Jack Henry Robbins. With many short and feature films in his still short career, the son of Sarandon and Robbins who presented Hot Winter at IndieLisboa 2017 as an European debut, returns to the festival with Painting with Joan, which premiered this year at the Sundance Festival. The film tells the story of the presentation of a painting and conspiracy theories involving extraterrestrials and sex.
A Brief Spark Bookend by Darkness by Brent Green is another short film also coming from the Sundance festival by a director who was in competition (for feature films) in 2011. The inspired filmmaker adept of effects and technologies amidst love stories, comes back with a very simple and beautiful animation film.
Jodilerks de la Cruz, Employee of the Month, by Carlo Francisco Manatad, had its premiere at Cannes Critics’ Week. This Filipino director and editor, frequently present at IndieLisboa, returns to his usual themes, and with humor presents us the dedicated Jodilerks on her last day of work.
T.R.A.P. of Manque la Banca has just premiered in the competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Filmed with outdated film, creating an additional grain in the image, this story traveling within time is an evocatively poetic tribute to truly independent cinema.
With his characteristic boldness, in Personal Truth, Charlie Lyne (who has presented us the unforgettable Beyond Clueless) questions the inability of humans to avoid pursuing guilt, and how apparent realities easily turn into absolute truths.