IndieLisboa 2007

Since 2004, the capital of Portugal hosts a festival that is dedicated to young and independent cinema, IndieLisboa. Directed by a triumvirate (Miguel Valverde, Nuno Sena and Rui Pereira), it became, in the four years of its existence, an event which does intentiously without the mainstream films and stars and focuses in stead on worldwide indies. What Portugal's most known independent filmmaker Pedro Costa said at the occasion of his Colossal Youth (Juventude em marcha, 2006). could be the festival motto: "Youth is a risk that needs to be taken. Cinema is a risk that needs to be taken." IndieLisboa takes this risk. The competitive section presented new directors with her first or second film. Sidebars ("Observatory", "Laboratory") showed films from the "New Crowned Hope" project and an overview on recent German cinema. Some of the films did of course tour already through the festival circuit, but to make them known to the Lisbon public and to put them in the context of worldwide independent cinema, is without any doubt a deserving (and risky) festival conception.

FIPRESCI Prize: Falkenberg Farewell (Farväl Falkenberg, 2006) by Jesper Ganslandt (Sweden). Details
IndieLisboa: April 19 — 29, 2007, www.indielisboa.com

Reports

Youth in Motion, Among Other Things. Stefan Ivančić reflects on IndieLisboa's balance of the global and the personal and finds a "strong mixture of past and present (and even future) that the festival (sub)consciously holds up, a treat that can be extended as essential in all kinds of Portuguese culture."
The Poetry of Loss. João Antunes meditates upon Jesper Ganslandt's Falkenberg Farewell, a film that "belongs to some very well known film categories, if not necessarily to genres — the coming-of-age movie, the autobiographical study, the adult male's boyish reflections on life."
Get On the Bus. Seven years on, Janusz Wróblewski meditates on Shinji Aoyama's Eureka. "Patiently and consistently tracing the nervous breakdown and gradual recovery that follow tragic events, Eureka is Shinji Aoyama's masterpiece — and the highlight of IndieLisboa's special director retrospective."

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