Political Festival shows cinema with diverse views on Lisbon

“ Cinema ends up being an important artistic representation, ends up saying a lot about its time, it ends up being a historical record also ", says Brazilian filmmaker Carlos Mouta Confort, in statements to Lusa.

Director of “A feeling called Carnival”, which accompanies the installation of Brazilian street Carnival blocks in Lisbon, where “this movement appears as a symbol of migratory presence, resistance and sense of freedom”, Carlos Mouta Confort notes that taking ownership of culture is also appropriated of the street.

“A feeling called Carnival” is one of four films that the Political Festival will display in a session called “Right to the City”, scheduled for this Thursday at 9:30 pm.

There is not one Brazilian Carnival, but, in Lisbon, the various demonstrations that give it body united in a single moment.

“ Here they come together and end up doing a unique Carnival ", Confort note, highlighting that being in the city is also using it as a place of coexistence and not only work.

“ How can I feel a little at home being away? I think these demonstrations represent this ", stresses, counting that "all Brazilians" with those who have more contact "somehow have a relationship with Carnival very particular".

The feeling of belonging is “to come and say ‘this is my culture too’”, opening doors to “everyone who wants to participate in the feast”.

In "Lisbone baas kora", by Filipe Barroso, the focus is on another of the many communities that inhabit the capital, which came from Bangladesh, with which he spent more than a year and a half filming.

Tried to understand “how the community was living in Lisbon, especially with all the attacks and false information about Bangladesh,” the director was “soon immediately” well received.

“ It was a fly on the wall, as if it were another person there and they gave me much freedom to film ", reports to Lusa.

He found interest on the part of the community in “communicating the truth, communicating what was going on” and “an enormous desire to integrate in Portuguese culture, in Portuguese life”, he says.

Filipe Barroso never went to Bangladesh, but in Portugal he only found “good people, from the heart”, and with “a desire to collaborate, to follow the rules, to contribute to Portuguese society”.

In return, they ask that they accept them “as they are,” but the director “unfortunately” did not find “this respect” in the welcoming society.

In addition to “Lisbone baas kora” and “A feeling called Carnival”, the session – which will take place in the Santa Clara Market – will also display the films “Irregular”, by Julio Moreira, and “Catalogue of a homeless city”, by Diogo Cunha.

Discarded by the cultural management of the City Hall of Lisbon, where it used to take place in April, the Political Festival was supported by the Junta de Freguesia de São Vicente, where the 10th edition will take place, between today and Saturday, with an entirely free program and having as its central theme the 50 years of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.