::: doclisboa 2008 :::

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Programme doclisboa 2008


	T	F	S	S	M	T	W	T	F	S	S	M	T	W
Programme day by day	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29

October 17 – friday

17 OCT. 11.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 21 OCT. 23.00 - Londres (room 2)
The Long Holiday DF
Johan Van der Keuken
145´ Netherlands 2000
In January 7th 2001, 62 years old Johan Van der Keuken died of prostate cancer. Before, he filmed The Long Holiday, a movie that made the filmmaker travel around the world just after he knew that he would only have a few years of life left. The director travels through places such as Nepal, Brazil, Africa, New York and San Francisco, contacting different societies and cultures, and collecting experiences that helped him face the approach of death. A profound homage to life and a lesson about the last days of one of the greatest Dutch filmmakers ever.

17 OCT. 15.00 - Londres (room 1) | 23 OCT. 18.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
Tehran Backyard SE
Roxana Pope
28´ Scotland 2007
Portrait of a woman: Pari, who lives on the outskirts of Tehran and travels everyday over six hours to work as a cleaning lady. Her husband is blind, she has five children, two grandchildren and is still, at 65 years of age, the main breadwinner of her family.
The Stone Silence I

Krzystof Kopczynski
51´ Poland 2007
In 2005, Amina, a 29 year-old woman, died – apparently stoned – in the Afghan village of Spin Gaw. There are several versions of what really happened during and after her death. The Stone Silence follows the official inquiry that occurred in the village for several months and reveals the strength of moral rules deeply rooted and in contradiction with the laws of the State. Amina’s family husband (who immigrated to Iran) and the lover’s family (currently in escape) abide to tradition: silence is made of stone.

17 OCT. 15.00 –São Jorge (room 3) | 26 OCT. 11.00 –São Jorge (room 3)
Be Like Others NF,NI
Tanaz Eshaghian
74´ UK/Iran/Canada/USA 2008
A film that depicts sex change operations over a year in an important clinic in Iran, presenting doctors, patients and State positions on the matter. Be Like Others portrays a generation of young Iranians “diagnosed” as transsexuals in a country that finances sex change, but whose law punishes homosexuals with the death penalty.

17 OCT. 16.00 - Londres (room 2) | 21 OCT. 16.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 24 OCT. 21.30 - Oriente Museum
Floating Dust MC
Huang Wenhai
111´ China 2003
Floating Dust shows us the dreams of common people that get together in a gambling club in a small village in the south of China. This is the story of an unemployed group that gathers every day to discuss gambling strategies, lottery winning probabilities and mathematical formulas that try to unlock the mysteries of luck and hidden codes in Teletubbies TV show. Focusing game’s obsession, Floating Dust follows a group of characters playing is own game of illusions for a better life.

17 OCT. 16.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 24 OCT. 23.00 - Londres (room 2)
Blind Loves R&E
Juraj Lehotský
77´ Slovakia 2008
Blind Loves is a genuine attempt to depict the different forms of love between blind people. Four individuals: Peter, Miro, Elena and Zuzana, expose us the beauty of their values and the vision they have of love and their need for it. When expressing a world of their own, they tend to reveal a very peculiar set of dreams, perceptions and ideas that are part of their quotidian and give us their image of life. A sensitive and emotionally powerful reflection of the most intimate feelings and emotions of blind people.

17 OCT. 16.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 19 OCT. 16.00 - Londres (room 2) | 25 OCT. 21.30 - Oriente Museum
Mum (Mama) MC
Zhang Yuan
90´ China 1990
Zhang Yuan’s first feature film is also the first Chinese independent film since 1949, financed at the time with the support of some business friends and revealing the filmmaker’s appetite for controversial subjects in Chinese society. A film which focuses on a mother’s relationship with her 11 year old handicapped son.

17 OCT. 17.00 –São Jorge (room 3) | 26 OCT. 15.00 – São Jorge (room 3)
No more hide & seek (Nous N’Irons Plus au Bois) NF, NI
Josée Dayan
74´ France 2007
Josée Dayan invites us to discover several transsexual portraits (masculine and feminine) in an affirmative film that reunites extraordinary accounts. Few times has the legislative psychiatric institution carried an almost police function in the access to transsexualism while being so clearly contested. More than the decades of oppression lived by the transsexual and transgender community, it’s the extraordinary will in living their identity in full liberty that is here evoked.

17 OCT. 17.30 - Londres (room 1) | 21 OCT. 21.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium)
The Champagne Spy I
Nadav Schirmann
90´ Germany/Israel 2007
The Champagne Spy is a thrilling 007 in the shape of a documentary. The unbelievable story of a Mossad spy (national intelligence of Israel) is revealed to us through the images and memories of his son, who at the age of 12 knew the double identity of his father. The style and suspense of this movie are perfectly adapted to a biography full of amazing adventures, double agents, political mysteries and ultra-secret missions. The renowned Israeli spy sent to Cairo to destroy the Egyptian nuclear program reveals himself not only as a divided man between his family and his mission, but also as someone who becomes more and more addicted to his cover identity as an ex-Nazi millionaire and extravagant playboy..

17 OCT. 18.00 - Londres (room 2) | 20 OCT. 23.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium)
The Secret (O Segredo) CN
Edgar Feldman
25´ Portugal 2008
António Dias Lourenço, 94 years old, communist, remembers the years of incarceration in the Peniche Fort during the fascist dictatorship in Portugal, focusing on the episode of his escape in 1954. The escape, which reveals a remarkable physical courage, is what the film intends to show. Revisiting the old high security prison, Dias Lourenço remembers the adventures he went through. It was after a one-month’s punishment in “the secret” (a small cubicle without light reserved to the worst punishments) that he decided to plan one of the most successful and spectacular escapes..
Farewell the Wind (O Adeus à Brisa) CN
Possidónio Cachapa
55´ Portugal 2008
A man speaks about his past, one that blends with his country’s own history. In an impressive speech, he evokes the fight for freedom and his belief in the power of revolutions and the supremacy of Beauty. In his room, Urbano Tavares Rodrigues, a writer and resistant, is still someone who believes in the best part of Man. And if some of his ideals failed throughout the years, that's just because their time did not yet come. But there will be a new world. It will exist. Urbano meditates among Time, while a warm southern breeze continues to blow.

17 OCT. 18.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 22 OCT. 21.00 - Londres (room 2)
Divorce Albanian Style I
Adela Peeva
66´ Bulgaria 2007
Three love stories interrupted during Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship in Albania, or the story of three couples that were destroyed and men who committed the sin of choosing foreign women as their wives. In some cases, the totalitarian ideology turned their own sons against their mothers. Three stories of Estate crimes – that represent a thousand of others – of which the unpunished responsible are still proud.

17 OCT. 18.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 24 OCT. 20.30 - Londres (room 1)
My Friend Mike at Work (O Meu Amigo Mike ao Trabalho) R&E
Fernando Lopes
49´ Portugal 2008
Mike, half Swiss, half American, is a friend of Portuguese director Fernando Lopes. He’s a painter and has been living in Portugal for 30 years, making him also Portuguese. His stage name is Michael Biberstein. His internationally acclaimed works belong to some of the most important collections and museums around the world. He and Fernando Lopes decided to embrace this adventure after a conversation they had in a mutual friend’s house. The result is this movie: an inner journey about the creation of a painting where its silence, its mystery and magic were filmed.

17 OCT. 20.30 - Londres (room 1) | 20 OCT. 14.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
Polish Shorts CP
Andrzej Wajda and Marcel Lozinski
Ceramics from Ilza, Andrzej Wajda, 1951, 10’
While you’re Asleep, Andrzej Wajda,1952, 11’
I Walk in the Sun, Andrzej Wajda, 1955, 13’
Proba Mikrofonu, Marcel Lozinski, 1981, 19’
Matriculation, Marcel Lozinski, 1981, 16’
My place, Marcel Lozinski, 1987, 15’

17 OCT. 20.45 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 23 OCT. 17.30 - Londres (room 1)
Enclosures CI
Arianne Olthaar
4´ Netherlands 2008
“Bathroom architecture” in European zoo’s; monkey and primate enclosures, built in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Alone in Four Walls CI
Alexandra Westmeier
85´ Germany 2007
A journey inside of a juvenile reform school in Russia that houses boys under 15, who have committed offences ranging from theft to rape to multiple murders. Most come from impoverished homes marked by beatings, alcohol abuse and absent. Alone in Four Walls listens carefully to what children have to say.

17 OCT. 21.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 26 OCT. 22.30 - Londres (room 1)
Titicut Follies RW
Frederick Wiseman
89´ USA 1967
Banned before 1992 because of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rule that described it as an invasion of inmate privacy and a violation to patient’s dignity, Titicut Follies is Frederick Wiseman’s first documentary and a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed in the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. A film that exposes the treatment of inmates by guards, social workers and psychiatrists, and which forces us to contemplate the limits of human indifference.

17 OCT. 21.00 - Londres (room 2) | 22 OCT. 16.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium)
Damages I
Thomas Balmès
68´ France/Finland 2007
Every year in the United States, billions of dollars are paid out in personal damages. Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder is one of the biggest legal firms specialized in this type of case. Damages shows, cynically and ironically, the various aspects of this form of advocacy. What’s the best strategy to get the highest compensations? Through several cases, we observe the daily work of the firm's lawyers as they meet the victims and families of victims, examine documents, create a script and try to put a value for each human life.

17 OCT. 21.30 – São Jorge (room 3) | 20 OCT. 22.00 – São Jorge (room 1)
Snowball (Bola de Nieve) HB
José Sanchez-Montes
73´ Spain 2003
Snowball, the unmistakable black Cuban pianist, “small and round as a little ball”, admired by Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Neruda, can still be heard on the soundtracks of Pedro Almodovar’s movies. This documentary tries to show the variety of influences that defined the singer and pianist’s style, from his African heritage to his pro-revolutionary side, also approaching his homosexuality. A film that shows the human profile of one of the greatest Latin American myths of the last century, self-proclaimed as “the sad man who used to sing happily”.

17 OCT. 21.30 - Museu do Oriente | 22 OCT. 16.00 - Londres (room 2) | 25 OCT. 16.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
The Last Lumberjacks MC
Yu Guangyi
90´ China 2006
The portrait of the lives of a group of loggers in the Heilongjiang Province of China, facing harsh weather conditions during their work in the old woodcut industry. Documenting a mode of production that is disappearing due to civilization’s progress, The Last Lumberjacks depicts how forests have been exploited for a living over more than a century in this region, using ancient techniques from one generation to another.

17 OCT. 22.00 – São Jorge (room 1) | 20 OCT. 21.30 – São Jorge (room 3)
Tosca’s Kiss (Il Bacio di Tosca) HB
Daniel Schmidt
87´ Switzerland/Italy 1984
Giuseppe Verdi used to describe it as his “finest work”, specially made for those who were less fortunate than him in life. Founded by the famous opera composer, “Casa di Riposo” (a place that still stands today at Buonarotti Square in Milan) was built for people who never made a big career, old opera singers and retired musicians. Tosca’s Kiss shows us how they still re-enact and reproduce their old triumphant stage roles, in a quotidian influenced by the old stage memories. Vissi d’Arti, one of Puccini’s emblematic arias, is the central theme of this film – one of the greatest in film history..

17 OCT. 22.30 - Londres (room 1) | 25 OCT. 23.00 – Londres (room 2)
Aka Ana R&E
Antoine D’Agata
60´ France 2008
The work of one of the most controversial and provocative photographers in France: Antoine d’Agata wrote a “documentary screenplay” inspired by Oshima’s Empire of the Senses (1976), then shot it in a four-month stay in Japan between September and December 2006. He himself is the principal character in this film, Aka Ana, which was shot on digital video. It is a private, autobiographical diary that explores the transgression, joy and violence of his nights in Japan, facing the ghost of pornography.

17 OCT. 22.45 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 20 OCT. 23.00 - Londres (room 1) | 24 OCT. 22.30 – Londres (room 1)
American Swing SE
Jon Hart and Mathew Kaufman
81´ USA 2008
The chronicle of the rise and fall of Larry Levenson, an ordinary man who turned the basement of the prestigious Ansonia building on the Upper West Side, in New York, into an effervescent sex club in 1977: Plato’s Retreat. The city's nightlife hit unprecedented heights and several couples came to the club to dance and swing. It was the start of a revolution and the sexual epicenter of a time, remembered here by former patrons, employees and never-before-seen archival images.

17 OCT. 23.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 22 OCT. 18.00 - Londres (room 2)
Streets of Sorrow (Ruas da Amargura) CN
Rui Simões
111´ Portugal 2008
Ruas da Amargura is a documentary about men and women of all ages in need of affection, dealing with financial or mental problems, alcoholism, drug addiction, or persons who simply arrived in Portugal looking for a better life. In the other side of the Street, there’s a crowd of volunteers, social workers and several technicians that build and keep the structures of social support, some of them hoping for better days to come, others institutionalizing its aid without believing that this phenomenon will ever have a cure. A job so often ungrateful and unsuccessful, mostly because, among other reasons, its lack of coordination.

17 OCT. 23.00 - Londres (room 2) | 22 OCT. 20.45 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
End of the Rainbow CI
Robert Nugent
83´ France 2007
A big multinational mining company transfers a large prospecting gold unit to a remote region of Guinea Conacry, West Africa. In this desperately poor place, the presence of the mine creates an atmosphere of change and conflict among the local inhabitants. What are the advantages of the so proclaimed progress in an African village? The transformation of the world imposed by money doesn’t mean necessarily happiness or a better way of life.

17 OCT. 23.30 – São Jorge (room 3) | 22 OCT. 24.00 – São Jorge (room 1)
Going Against Fate HB
Viviane Blumenschein
80´Switzerland 2008
Going Against Fate follows the American conductor David Zinman and the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich during the rehearsals, concerts and recordings of Gustav Mahler’s 6th Symphony, moments in which the charismatic David Zinman provides both intimate stories and information about the personal life of the Austrian composer. At the same time, we look behind the scenes and witness how the conductor and his orchestra interact on their journey towards the finished recording, as they unravel the secret of a musical masterpiece: the symphony.

17 OCT. 24.00 – São Jorge (room 1) | 21 OCT. 21.30 – São Jorge (room 3)
Septembers (Septiembres) HB
Carles Bosch
89´ Spain 2007
Every year, in September, the Spanish penitentiary system promotes a music festival that gathers the best singers among the inmates of all country, a competition that is anxiously awaited and which elects the best detainee singer. What seems to be an ordinary musical contest turns into an event of hope and a portrait of the deepest feelings of these convicts. Through the years that separate both contests, Carles Bosch follows some of the detainees, such as Arturo, a gipsy that sings for his wife and children, Rudolf, a expatriate Lithuanian that associates is elected his performance to an Ukrainian love, and Adelberto, a young Argentinean that calls his grandmother every week.