More than thirty Portuguese films in October at the Doclisboa festival

The full schedule was unveiled today in Lisbon, with the direction to underline the presence of works of names such as Denis Cotê, Avi Mograbi, Jia Zhangke, Mariano Llinás and French filmmaker Alain Cavalier, this one with the film “Thanks for Coming”, a kind of farewell at the end of the festival at the age of 95.

From October 15 to 25, there will be 198 films from 51 countries, including 32 Portuguese films, “through geographies, generations and different ways of making and thinking about cinema”.

In the international competition is “13 Pinnetes”, a film that João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata made by BoCA – Biennial of Contemporary Arts, calling the myth of Santo António and the painting of Goya. It was shot in Lisbon and Madrid, in IMAX format with direction of photography of Rui Poças.

The Portuguese competition includes 11 films, short films and long films, all of them in world premiere, such as “People and Power”, by Ico Costa, which portrays Mozambique in the presidential elections of 2024, the film essay “The house is the ruin of a house”, by Inês Sapeta Dias, and “The voice of everyone – Jornal do Fundão”, by Manuel Mozos.

According to the festival, the competitive section presents “a selection of extraordinary sophistication and aesthetic diversity and political sharpness”.

Already exhibited in Locarno, “Warrilha no Asphalto”, by Edgar Pêra, which part of Manuel Ricardo Sousa’s homonymous book on the FP-25 and mixes the director’s memories about the 1980s, will open Doclisboa.

The direction of the festival also highlights, among others, “Life of Jorge Luis Borges”, by Mariano Llinás, on the literary universe of the Argentine writer, the fiction “Nobody’s Violence”, by Denis Côté, and the Portuguese-French coproduction “Wild Asparagus”, by Israeli Avi Mograbi, who lives in Portugal.

In Lisbon will be German filmmaker Monica Maurer and French filmmaker Aude Fourel, focusing on Palestine. The first “dedicated much of her life to document the Palestinian struggle”, while the second “filmed her working with her archives”.

The festival had previously announced a substantial part of the program, such as the films “Knife: The attempted waller of Salman Rushdie”, by Alex Gibney, “Elza”, by Eryk Rocha, about Brazilian singer Elza Soares, and the first film by actress Juliette Binoche as director, “In-I in Motion”, about her collaboration with dancer and choreographer Akram Khan.

They will also be in the Doclisboa “In this Room”, in which Ana Rocha de Sousa follows the fadista Carminho on tour of Japan, “This Life of Sailor”, by Paulo Miguel Antunes, which recalls the route of musician João Cantela, and “Letter to a young writer”, by Marta Pessoa, about the authors Olga Gonçalves, Graça Pina de Morais, Maria Cecília Correia, Alice Sampaio and Maria Amelia Neto.

Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, who was considered by his peers a master of documentary cinema and who died last week in Paris, at the age of 85, will be remembered by Doclisboa with the last film, “Mi país imaginário”, unpublished in Portugal.

The 24th Doclisboa is scheduled from 15 to 25 October at Culturgest, Cinema São Jorge, Cinemateca Portuguesa e Cinema Ideal and Centro de Arte Moderna da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, where a performance is expected, within the framework of the retrospective dedicated to Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka (1939–1991).

Presented in partnership with the Portuguese Cinemateca, this retrospective, dedicated to a “greater picture of Filipino cinema and one of the most influential directors in the history of Asian cinema”, has curated the artist and filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz, with the programming teams of the festival and Cinemateca.

Announced in June, the retrospective “Lino Brocka – Kill the National Artist” is, according to the organizers, one of the most extensive shows dedicated to the director of films such as “Jaguar”, “This Is My Country” and “Insiang” (“The Lilius of Manila”), first of the filmmaker selected for Cannes and, for decades, the only premiere in the Portuguese commercial circuit.

The DocLisboa International Film Festival is organized by Apordoc – Association by the Documentary.