Cinema: IndieLisboa FilmFestival has started!

The fourth edition of IndieLisboa – Lisbon’s International Independent Film Festival - started yesterday, April 19, 2007. Until April 29, 226 films from all over the world will be screened. That includes 19 World premieres and 10 european premieres, but also film-concerts and talks. The opening ceremony will be followed by the screening of the movie-concert “LIFE IN LOOPS - A MEGACITIES REMIX”, by Timo Novotny/ by austrian group SOFA SURFERS.

INDIELISBOA aims to meet some of the most recent and interesting works of independent cinema from all over the world. The Festival intends to discover new films and new directors, in the universe of independent cinema. In only three years it was able to become the second most important Portuguese festival.

For the international competition, IndieLisboa will comprise short and feature films that have never been publicly screened in Portugal, and that have been concluded in 2006 or 2007. There is also a section for shorts and features and an Observatory as a radar on what’s being done in the independent film scene. There's also a laboratory section that explores the new territories of filmmaking. IThe festival will also organize the LISBON SCREENINGS: PORTUGUESE PREMIERES, a special event on the 20th, 21st and 22nd of April 2007.

The international competition section includes, among others, Mexico's DRAMA/MEX (by Gerardo Naranjo, 2006), Chile's RABIA (by Oscar Cárdenas, 2006), Argentina's EL AMARILLO (by Sergio Mazza, 2006), Israel's CLOSE TO HOME (by Vidi Bilu & Dalia Hager, 2006) and Germany's SUMMER '04 (by Stefan Krohmer, 2006). There are also some 31 films also in the short film section .

This year, IndieLisboa will pay tribute to japanese director Shinji Aoyama and to the New German Cinema. In 2004 the festival paid tribute to the Sundance Film Festival and in 2005 to the New Argentinean Cinema and chinese cineast Jia Zhangke. In 2007, ten years after "Henry Fool", Hal Hartley returns to the story of Fay Grim and Henry Fool, also to be seen in Lisbon.

The closing Film will be the much awaited DEATH OF A PRESIDENT (by Gabriel Range - United Kingdom, 2006) (in which President G. W. Bush is assassinated in Chicago…).

This is all very promising! Pitty I will not be in Lisbon to enjoy all this…