Lisbon – IndieLisboa 2008

FIPRESCI Prize: "Momma's Man"

As the name reveals it, IndieLisboa is establishing itself as a platform for world independent cinema. The international competition section is devoted to young filmmakers with one or two feature-length (either fiction or documentary) films under their belts, while the national competition presents a selection of new Portuguese films. In addition to this, the festival showcases the most significant contemporary works in auteur cinema to its home audiences (Observatory, Laboratory, Director's Cut) and pays special focus to the work of "Independent Heroes" — this year bowing to the impressive oeuvres of Johnnie To and José Luis Guerín and providing an overview of new Romanian cinema. The composition of the latter nicely reveals the directors' (the trio of Rui Pereira, Nuno Sena, Miguel Valverde) policy and approach to programming: instead of simply presenting the usual suspects (Pui, Mungiu, Porumboiu, Nemescu, Muntean) and their award-winning films, the festival travelled to Romania and searched for new interesting names as well as the early works and shorts that served as the seeds for the exciting cinema that we know today, allowing for a deeper insight into this turbulent country.
    IndieLisboa also shows a rich selection of shorts that compete for the international and national award, presents a regular program on children's films (IndieJunior), while a special attention is given to music documentaries (the annual IndieMusic section) as well. In fact IndieLisboa is a much bigger festival than it might appear on first sight (to add figures: 239 films representing 40 countries).
    Despite its young age (celebrating its fifth anniversary this year), the festival has gained a reputation as the most important cinema event in Portugal. At the same time its international reputation has been built as an attentively curated festival where less exposed films with fresh, sometimes quite radical ideas and intriguing personal styles, are brought to consideration.
    All in all, IndieLisboa is a feast for local audiences, a quality festival with a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, an ideal venue for journalists and critics to conduct interviews with directors who tend to be too busy at larger events, and a place for programmers to make personal contacts. (Nika Bohinc)

IndieLisboa (Lisbon, Portugal), April 24 — May 4, 2008, www.indielisboa.com
FIPRESCI Prize: Momma's Man by Azazel Jacobs (USA, 2008). Motivation: "For an honest, simple and profoundly human approach to blend personal experience with fiction in a way that everyone can relate to. For its laconic humor, the brilliant performance of the lead actor and its bundling together of memories and longings in a unique place." Details

Reports

Warm Moods. Nika Bohinc reviews Azazel Jacob's Momma's Man. "The cinema language", she writes, "is a profoundly simple one. Under that simplicity lies a warm humor, and it is circled in a whole by soft pillow shots of director's bows to people and things close to him", among them his parents Ken and Flo Jacobs, acclaimed filmmakers in their own right.
From Documentary to Poetry. Luis Salvado considers five very different Portuguese feature films in which "the audacity of their directors can hardly be questioned". 
Life Is Elsewhere. Julia Teichmann is impressed by a retrospective of New Romanian Cinema, which included the earlier work by the directors that became part of the "New Wave".

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