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From May 5th to May 15th, IndieJunior brings to Portugal the most important international films of various genres dedicated to the younger members of the audience. Included in the program of the International Independent Film Festival – IndieLisboa, IndieJunior will have sessions at São Jorge Cinema, Culturgest and the newly opened Teatro do Bairro. This year, IndieJunior will screen 16 animations, 15 fictions, two documentaries and two music videos, in a total of 35 films.
Animations, documentaries and fictions
This year, the pre-school sessions highlight the swiss animation Whose Trousers?, where the characters discuss how to wear clothes and also the German short film Breim Brumm Bumm, which shows what can happen when a meal is rejected.
As for movies for the 1st grade, the highlight goes to the Belgian Fatimata in Canada, which shows how the African boys see the world and the French animation Specky four-eyes, a beautiful approach to the fantasy of a child-like vision of the world and the way it transforms everything around. The program dedicated to the Junior High brings the documentary Skateistant: To Live and Skate Kabul, filmed in Afghanistan, which shows us how many children have found a way to escape the war through the practice of skateboarding. The films chosen for high school students have an emphasis on fiction. In 13 a teenager is faced with a new family, more precisely, her father’s new boyfriend, in a current approach to new ways to experience parenthood.
The feature films program includes four fiction films from Denmark, USA, France and Iceland. My Good Enemy (over 9 years old) speaks about what happens in situations of bullying, when the perpetrators are punished and the victims have a taste of power. Of particular note is the French film Hands Up, (over 12 years old), which delves into the contemporary issue of the permanence of immigrants in Europe, showing us a group of children who decides to “kidnap” itself as a protest against the expulsion of other foreign children.
Focus on the French animation studio Folimage
This year, the IndieJunior section also includes a special program dedicated to Folimage. With more than 50 awards in its curriculum, this small animation studio, located in the French city of Valence, has resisted the dominance of Japanese producers and American animation market, keeping a work philosophy where auteur cinema is above the business logic. Among the films produced by Folimage screening on IndieJunior are titles like Amerlock, directed by Jacques-Remy Girerd (founder of Folimage), The Monk and the Fish, by Michaél Dudok de Wit, Le Trop Petit Prince by Zoia Trofimova, Tragic Story with Happy Ending by Portuguese director Regina Pessoa and The Head in the Stars by Sylvain Vincendeau, among others.
Activities for kids
Alongside the exhibition of films, IndieJunior also offers several initiatives aimed at the effective participation of the youngest in the dynamics of the festival. Viewers can chat with filmmakers of the films exhibited (which will be at the festival to present the sessions) and participate in workshops on filmmaking, artistic and scientific creation, made with various entities.
Image: Hands Up, by Romain Goupil