IndieJúnior is back for another year of cinematic adventures with IndieLisboa’s kids and grown-ups. Inside and outdoors, IndieJúnior will take cinema to Culturgest, Cinema Ideal, Cinema São Jorge and also, this year, Biblioteca Palácio Galveias’ garden. In addition to the usual short-film programme, several parallel activities will be held along with a Family Day which is, as the name suggests, really for everyone.
This year’s edition has several unmissable moments. In the usual emotion kaleidoscope, this year’s programme looks at cinema as a creation well. Making, creating and thinking are mirrored concepts in the screened images. From references to the struggle of working from home for parents with children (Tales from the Multiverse) to discussions about social inclusion and gender issues (Louis’s Shoes and Girlsboysmix), through an ecological and conscious message about the environment surrounding us (Orgiastic Hyper-Plastic) and the importance of letting our imagination fly in this day and age (Hello Monsieur). Over 40 films are programmed this year, most of them in competition, combining both an educational and entertaining dimension.
One of this year’s highlights is the Family Day, which will happen on September 4, and will start with a special short-film screening in Culturgest: Family Bonds (3+), with a live voice-over by actor, writer and comedian Pedro Cardoso. In this screening, you’ll see a version of the Earth that did not turn out as planned, as many parents working from home have pointed out lately. In the short Tales of the Multiverse, God is confronted with this problem. An Open-Air Party will follow this screening, featuring a live concert by Gui Calegari, musician and artist in the Baileia collective, but also a No Limits artistic expression workshop (3-8 years old), in partnership with the publisher Orfeu Negro. All activities within the party are free, and registration is mandatory here. To round off the day, there will be an open-air screening of Hello World! (6+) also in Biblioteca Palácio Galveia’s garden. A delicate film made with newsprint paper characters, animated in stop motion, and sculptures made by hand, all in hand-painted sets with great attention to detail. A story told through the eyes of ten animals who, together, illuminate the wonders of nature.
Hello World! was the main inspiration for the I Was Born, Now What? workshop, which will happen on September 5 in Biblioteca Palácio Galveias’ patio, and focuses on its participants as builders of the world. Using wood along with natural small objects as a starting point, children will be able to contemplate the biodiversity presented in the film and complete their creations with wood-finishing techniques, applying wax or oil from natural sources.
But this year’s emphasis is on the new Cinema de Colo, the long-dreamed-of part of this edition that happens in a small and safe movie theatre, with a set design conceived especially for parents and their babies. Designed for children from 4 months to 2 and a half years, Cinema de Colo (Lap Cinema) is called that way for two reasons: The obvious one refers to the place where the baby starts to discover the world around them. The other contextualizes the creation of a specific set design, inside a room but inspired by the outdoors, where the child can move and react safely in a reproduction of the parent’s cosy lap during a starry night. A first and unforgettable visual discovery for the younger ones and their families. During these screenings, there will be five small films, stories full of stimulating sounds and colours.
In the competition for the younger ones this year – Daydreaming (3+) and Life is a Surprise (6+) sessions – the focus is on films that develop one’s creative capacity, simple but wise. On the one hand, films that look at love as a never-ending flame, like Cornstalk (3+) and Pompier (6+). On the other hand, films that confuse and surprise us through the performative act, like Angry Dogs (3+) and The 7 Kids (6+).
Like every year, the My Own Film Festival Programme initiative, an educational activity that gives young students the chance to programme films for children their ages, reveals key filmswhich approach socially significant themes. Programmed with students from the Josefa de Óbidos elementary and secondary school (O Lugar das Memórias session, 10+) and the Almeida Garrett elementary school (Pensar, Sonhar e Voar session, 12+), we discover films that everyone should see. Starting with Louis’s story, an autistic child who has just arrived at a school where he can finally share his perception of things (In Louis’s Shoes, 10+). A film that is not so much about his neuro-unusual condition as it is about society’s tendency to catalogue our identities, showing an enlightened understanding of what it is to be human – “Molds are good for waffles”. Girlsboysmix (10+), in the same line of thought, is Wen Long’s narration about growing up as an intersex child, and July 96 (12+), a film that focuses on a decisive moment in two girls’ lives through a summer vacation story, and To the Moon and Back (12+), that contemplates death and the way we deal with it.
Louis’s Shoes will be the starting point for a debate on autism: “The way towards inclusion in school and in the community”, which will reflect on how to identify autism and how to approach differences. In the end, aren’t we all different? A debate film for every parent, child and teacher, happening on September 2 in Biblioteca Palácio Galveias. (Free entry, limited capacity – registration is mandatory, here).
In addition to these activities, IndieJúnior offers a flipbook workshop, I Want to Animate (7+), conceived and hosted by the director Leonor Faria Henriques, whose film Nothing is Lost (6+) is programmed, about how to face loss and overcome it – on August 21 in Biblioteca Palácio Galveias’s patio. And a body expression workshop See The World with my Hands (5+), conceived by the artist-teacher duo Baileia, inspired by the film Hello Monsieur, that plays with perspectives.
Updates on www.indielisboa.com/indiejunior