When Doclisboa, which runs 19-29 October, recently published its programme, organisers described a sense of ‘roaring hope’ felt by all at the festival, a perception that cinema can enable greater understanding of the turbulent times in which we live. “The films reveal the pulse of the world and those who inhabit it,” the festival wrote.
Doclisboa director Miguel Ribeiro ponders the matter further with Business Doc Europe. “What we see is that, in spite of all the complications and the difficulties, the crises and all these things that [have] so many times struck us, films keep on giving us new perspectives into our world, into our present, mapping possible futures…And when they [films] don’t give us answers or solutions, they do give us an openness to our mind and the capacity to reflect. That is definitely hopeful in itself because it takes us away from a static state.”
In 2023, Doclisboa will screen 250 films from 42 countries, including 35 world premieres and 39 Portuguese films. This year’s International Competition includes selections from 16 countries and features six world premieres. Of the 39 Portuguese films in this year’s edition, nine are in Portuguese Competition, seven of which are world premieres.
The competition programmes are diverse and, as in previous editions, imbued with an auteur sense of aesthetic. What’s more, the selections are of varying lengths. A third of the films in International Competition are shorts (four out of 12), while four shorts are also selected for the 10-film Portuguese Competition.
“The main consideration is trying to share…an idea of what documentary cinema can be at any moment in time,” Ribeiro comments. “And so, through that, we don’t aim at fixating one idea of ours, but try to translate the many ways in which we have been inspired by different languages, different formal approaches, different ideas that are being put forward through films.”
Ribeiro further elaborates on the festival’s contribution to the promotion and exhibition of “different forms of filmmaking that have one thing in common – which is an absolute free spirit in the ways of using a camera, bringing in sounds and understanding the possibilities of cinema.”
“If filmmakers can produce in a state of freedom…which allows them to really deepen their reflections towards what they are looking at, [then] you have an incredibly diverse form of filmmaking, beyond formats, beyond sets, [beyond] ideas of how structures and narratives should be.”
This seems much in evidence within the Portuguese films playing both in and out of National Competition, which also embrace specific themes such as gentrification, colonialism and the shifting sands of labour. Ribeiro describes the Leonor Teles’ festival closer Baan as “a very meaningful film about how Lisbon is transforming itself…in regards to gentrification, but also precariousness [in its] links to its colonial past, in this case with Macau.”
He further flags up the Portuguese Competition selection Fire in the Mud by Catarina Laranjeiro and Daniel Barroca which he describes as “a very important film about how forms of resistance in Guinea during the colonial past is still present in the bodies and the dancing” of the film’s subjects.
The topic of Portuguese labour is examined in To Gather, which describes the industrial process of cork extraction in a village in Portugal, that becomes the location for a “technological clash,” between a father and daughter.
Another doc with a strong existential undertow is the New York-based short This Night Has Opened My Eyes, which is “a film that directly looks at the ways that artificial intelligence is shaping new forms of connection,” Ribeiro underlines. “[In the programme] you have things that we haven’t seen Portuguese cinema discussing before, but this doesn’t erase the continuous debates that are part of our present day, and these films allow us to go deeper into them.”
Doclisboa Industry
Nebulae is the Doclisboa programme that is dedicated to industry and networking. Running from 19 to 24 October the professional sidebar promotes activities that “foster the development, creation, production and dissemination of different independent film Constellations,” organisers note.
“We are looking at the concerns and needs of filmmakers at all times,” Ribeiro articulates a defining principle of Nebulae. “[It is] a program that directly responds to this and so can be helpful in maintaining a space that fosters this ‘freedom’ that we were speaking of before.”
Nebulae will present the second edition of ‘Jumpgate – Inspiring European Producers,’ which aims to facilitate the sharing of ideas, the exchange of knowledge and the promotion of future partnerships between established and emerging professionals. The event welcomes 20 producers from 12 European countries in 2023. “It is a space where producers can participate by their profile and not by their projects,” Ribeiro stresses. “So they come here really with an openness to build long-term relationships, rather than fast results.”
Among the many panel discussions at Nebulae 2023 is the all too essential “Body of work: Can we make it better for us?” debate, presented in partnership with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. “We’ll look directly into the recent changes in terms, the ways that work changed with the digitization of so many parts of the work sphere, about how it created new dynamics but also new forms of exhaustion, and how so many people across the cultural sector are dealing with burn-out,” says Ribeiro.
The ninth Arché pitching forum gathers representatives of film projects from 10 countries around the globe, including Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Spain, who come to Lisbon for “an exchange of experiences” with industry professionals and the mentoring and tutoring of seasoned filmmakers.
The guest country of Nebulae 2023 is Finland for which Doclisboa has devised a programme of meetings, networking activities and a pitch session for national projects in development. This year, a selection of eight projects from Finland and four countries from previous Nebulae editions—Germany, Georgia, Croatia and France—will be presented.
Ribeiro notes how, even if Finland and Portugal exist geographically on the peripheries of Europe, all of Europe nevertheless lies between them, and therefore both countries can observe the “whole diversity of contexts and modes of production,” that the continent has to offer.
Furthermore, the Finnish industry offers the “plasticity and the potentiality of possibilities that we [also] see in Portuguese cinema, like a freedom of approach and the freedom of mediums through which cinema can develop.”
“We see documentary as a way to employ the tools of cinema to take us on a quest of discovery. And for this, you need to have freedom for production, and freedom to think, to question and to reflect,” Ribeiro signs off.
