Programme features 206 films, 31 world premieres and 30 international premieres, spread over six ‘moments’ of the festival that commences October 22 and concludes March 10 2021.
Doclisboa has invited both the Portuguese public and the local/international doc community October 12 to “accompany the festival on a six-month journey through different programmatic landscapes,” during 2020 and 2021. These are:
Signals (October 22 to November 1)
Movements (November 5 to 11)
Spaces of Intimacy (December 3 to 9)
So Many Stories Left Untold (January 14 to 20)
Archives of the Time Being (February 4 to 10)
Where I’m Coming From, Where I’m Going To (March 4 to 10).
“The model of this year’s festival starts from the will to engage encounters and to create a ground for the collective experience of cinematographic art, in contribution to social reconstruction and strengthening,” the festival statement notes.
The festival’s first ‘moment’, Signals, which takes place between October 22 and November 1, will comprise a selection of five films representative of each subsequent theme – Mon Amour by David Teboul; Riverock by Paula Gaitán; War by José Oliveira and Marta Ramos; Chelas Nha Kau by the collective Bataclan 1950 and Bagabaga Studios (world premiere at Doclisboa); and Kubrick by Kubrick, by Gregory Monro.
Signals is completed by the retrospective ‘Permanent Travel – The Restless Cinema of Georgia’, the ‘Body of Work’ programme, the Opening Session with Nheengatu – The Language of the Amazon Forest, by José Barahona, and two special sessions of ‘Cinema of Urgency’, programmed by the collective Mentuwajê Guardians of Culture and SOS Racismo.
The second ‘moment’ of Doclisboa takes place November 5-11. “Movements intends to swim within the fluid concepts of identity, space and time in their most diverse layers, whether in the personal, social or political sphere, offering a look at the latest films by Maria Clara Escobar, Luciana Fina, Mouaad el Salem and Cláudia Varejão,” writes the festival.
Over the following months, the festival will also present world premieres such as Life in Common by Diogo Pereira, and Visions of the Empire by Joana Pontes. It will journey through different musical spheres, reverberating with the punk energy of Mata-Ratos Live at the Linda-a-Velha Academy in a documentary by Patrick Mendes, and will bask in the delicacy and tenderness with which a 90-year-old piano teacher engraves her Brahms lessons upon her young students, in Edgardo Cozarinsky’s Medium.
Doclisboa’s 18th edition will also feature the latest films by Paula Gaitán, Frederick Wiseman and Radu Jude.
Screenings will all take place in physical cinemas in Lisbon (Cinema São Jorge, Culturgest, Cinemateca Portuguesa and Cinema Ideal), with the exception of Green Years and the historical programme designed for ‘Body of Work’, which will be available at dafilms.com from October 22 to November 3.
Doclisboa’s industry hub, Nebulae, will take place entirely online, offering activities, gatherings, opportunities and people for the advancement of the creation, production and dissemination of independent film.
“From October to March, the whole world fits in Lisbon!” the festival underlines.
