::: 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 20 – monday

20 OCT. 11.00 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 26 OCT. 15.30 - Londres (room 1)
Welfare RW
Frederick Wiseman
167´ USA 1975
In Welfare, Wiseman presents us the daily life of a large American welfare centre. The nature and complexity of the welfare system depicted in the film illustrates the staggering diversity of problems that make up welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. Welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and their lives.

20 OCT. 14.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 17 OCT. 20.30 - Londres (room 1)
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’

20 OCT. 15.00 - Londres (room 1) | 21 OCT. 18.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium)
Tell Me About Love (Parlez Moi d’Amour) CI
Alexia Bonta
14´ Belgium 2007
The Red Race CI
Chao Gan
70´Germany/China 2008
Following every day of a group of Chinese children from impoverished rural provinces that have the dream of becoming gold medalists, The Red Race shows us the physical and emotional aspects of competition at his highest level. After the media and sports hegemony revealed by the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, we take an insight on the other side of success.

20 OCT. 16.00 - Londres (room 2) | 18 OCT. 16.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 22 OCT. 21.30 - Museu do Oriente
The Square MC
Zhang Yuan and Dua Jing-Chuan
100´ China 1994
Directors Hang Yuan and Dua Jing-Chuan choose not only to focus on the set of one of the most famous squares of the world, Tiananmen, but to also draw a meticulous portrait of the daily life of this place. Directed in 1994, five years after the events on the 4th of June of 1989, the duo steps away from political or historical considerations. They choose instead to reveal the daily details: a police statue, the image of tourists taking pictures, the rite to hoist and to strike the flag, or people making exercise.

20 OCT. 16.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 18 OCT. 16.00 - Londres (room 2) | 26 OCT. 21.30 - Museu do Oriente
Red Paradise MC
Bai Budan
7´ China 2007
In a valley between seven great mountains, there’s a small village, Laoyaogou, whose hard working inhabitants explore coal mines under Communist Party supervision. Despite the difficulties the village had to face during the last years, reality shows several “miracles”. In 2006, the village won the title for “Civilized and Harmonious Village of Shanxi’s Province”, for which the locals expressed grateful thanks to all of those who helped them, as well as to the Communist Party.
Little Feet MC
Bai Budan
114´ China 2005
In Xiayao Village in the Shanxi Province, we meet Bai Danu, foot-bound since she was seven years old, who married Liu Buhan more than forty years ago. The eighty year old couple still has to get up early to work in the fields and come back home late in the evening. Far from the luster of modern China, Little Feet shows us the reality of the broken rural areas with scenes where various other old ladies pour out their feelings on their “little feet”.

20 OCT. 16.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 26 OCT. 14.00 - Londres (room 1)
High School RW
Frederick Wiseman
75´ USA 1968
High School was filmed in a large urban high school in Philadelphia. The film documents how the school system exists not only to pass on ‘facts’ but also transmit social values from one generation to another. Or as one disciplinarian lecturing a minor offender: "We are here in order to make you a man and to guarantee that you may receive orders."

20 OCT. 17.00 – São Jorge (room 3)
Two Mothers (Meine Mutter) NF, NI
Rosa von Praunheim
87´Germany 2007
Rosa von Praunheim, an icon of the German film underground scene, had a shock when his mother revealed to him, before her death, that he was adopted. This film is about the search of his biological parents. With little information available, the filmmaker tries to find his origins in Latvia, unraveling stories that are mixed-up with the chronicle of a frightful time. Is he Jewish, the son of a Nazi butcher or a product of Aryan experiences?

20 OCT. 17.30 - Londres (room 1) | 25 OCT. 14.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium)
The Tailor (El Sastre) CI
Óscar Perez
30´ Spain 2007
In the Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona, Mohamed, a Pakistani tailor, and Singh, is Indian employee, work together. Mohamed is a temperamental man who is only interested in business and religion. The confrontation between his values and the ones of his clients couldn’t be funnier.
All White in Barking CI
Marc Isaacs
73´ UK 2007
“You are what you eat,” the saying goes. In the London district of Barking, an area that has some of the highest levels of immigration, not everyone eats the same. “I don't like their food”, the butcher says, “because I'm not used to it.” An elderly couple doesn't like the cooking smells wafting in from their Nigerian neighbours… But when invited for dinner at their houses, they quietly clean their plates. A film about immigration and racism in contemporary England.

20 OCT. 18.00 - Londres (room 2) | 22 OCT. 23.15 – Culturgest (large auditorium)
The Man Who Jumped (U Omãi Qe Dava Pulus) CN
João Pinto Nogueira
76´ Portugal 2008
Author of three novels: A Noite e o Riso, Directa, Square Tolstoi and a compilation of tales: Estação. He was also a screenwriter of Os Verdes Anos, Portuguese New Cinema’s inaugural film, and co-director with Gerard Castello-Lopes of Nacionalidade: Português. Born to a catholic conservative family, he becomes a militant of MAR (Movement of Revolutionary Action) and later secretly interviews Álvaro Cunhal. He joined the Revolutionary Brigades of Carlos Antunes and Isabel do Carmo and worked in the meantime in the Portuguese permanent representation at the OCDE. Who was Nuno Bragança?

20 OCT. 18.30 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 25 OCT. 18.15 - Londres (room 2)
Sinai Field Mission RW
Frederick Wiseman
127´ USA 1978
The routine activities of the American assignees who work on the U.S. Sinai Field Mission, the early warning system established in 1976 to help facilitate the disengagement between Egypt and Israel after the 1973 war. The film focuses on surveillance operations and strategic passes of the Mission in all of the Egyptian and Israeli surveillance station, as well as their relationship with UN soldiers and the quotidian of the 163 American soldiers that were sent to the Sinai Desert. A military world obsessively focused on war – a fact that becomes a crying irony during the ordinary moments where nothing warlike happens.

20 OCT. 18.30 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 25 OCT. 21.00 - Londres (room 2)
The way of a warrior I
Andreas Pichler
88´ Germany/Italy/Switzerland 2008
The story of Michael Notdurfer, a young German missionary who abandoned Europe at 20 years of age to travel to Bolivia and played, at 29, a decisive role in the guerrilla group National Liberation Front. What is there in common between the catholic ideals and the armed movements who fight for social justice?

20 OCT. 20.30 - Londres (room 1)
AfterSchool R&E
António Campos
122’ USA 2008
Robert is a young American student of an elite East Coast preparatory school who accidentally captures the tragic death of two classmates on camera. Their lives are shown as part of an audio-visual assignment designed to heal the campus life. But the video memorial assignment creates an atmosphere of paranoia and uneasiness among students and teachers.

20 OCT. 20.45 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 24 OCT. 17.30 - Londres (room 1)
Impermanent CI
Mario Rizzi
15´ Italy 2007
Ali Akilah is 96 years old and lives in Aman (Jordan), but he was born in Lifta, a Palestinian village whose area corresponds to West Jerusalem today. After studying medicine in Beirut (Lebanon), he worked as a doctor in Haifa until 1948. While he remembers certain moments of his life, he shows a feeling of “permanent impermanence”.
To See if I’m Smiling CI
Tamar Yaron
59´ Israel 2007
A young Israeli woman director who served in the Israeli Army in occupied territories collects the terrible statements of six women who, in obedience to military logics, like her, committed shameful actions: the humiliation of civilians, the rape and killing of innocent people, pictures taken at the side of murdered victims. The innocence and emotion which they speak with about that period contrasts with the dramatic content of their confessions: “My hands are full of blood”.

20 OCT. 21.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 22 OCT. 20.30 – Londres (room 1)
Standard Operating Procedure SE
Errol Morris
111´ USA 2008
The photographs taken at Abu Ghraib’s prison in Baghdad changed the way the United States saw itself as a nation. But one mystery remains unsolved: do these notorious images provide proof of systematic torture at the hands of the American Army? Or do they just document the abnormal behaviour of a few moral deviators? Through the account of officials who took the photographs and of those who appear in them, the documentary thoroughly examines the context of the images. The spectator might get perplexed: how can such abject acts of humiliation and torture (in most cases against innocents who were accused by chance) be classified by the American jurisdiction as “Standard Operating Procedures”?

20 OCT. 21.00 - Londres (room 2) | 18 OCT. 18.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
My Enemy's Enemy I
Kevin Macdonald
87´France/UK 2007
For decades, the United States and post war European governments protected one of the most famous and infamous commanders of the Gestapo: Klaus Barbie, also known as the “Butcher of Lyon”. My Enemy’s Enemy follows the activities of this ex-Nazi during the post-war period, working for the very nations that once pursued him during World War II. Klaus Barbie teached and practiced torture in Latin America under explicit American protection and the French government’s compliance. A demystifying and disenchanted portrait of the State’s interests.

20 OCT. 21.30 - Museu do Oriente | 23 OCT. 16.00 - Londres (room 2) | 24 OCT. 16.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
A Day to Remember MC
Liu Wei
13´ China 2005
June 4th, 2005: Chinese filmmaker Liu Wei heads to the University of Beijing and Tiananmen Square with a camera and one simple question: “do you know what day is today?” As he asks students and young people passing by, he faces evasive answers and the refusal to remember the events of that date. Most say they know nothing about it and quickly go on their way, or look blankly into the camera. A Day to Remember is a movie that reflects about the memory of June 4th and how it has been replaced by silence, showing that the revolt of that time still remains a taboo subject in China.
Crazy English MC
de Zhang Yuan
Li Yang is a teacher who believes in the virtues of English studies in China. Since 1998, he has produced hundreds of events promoting English language in public places around his country, such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China or Marco Polo Bridge. Li made public appearances for more than 13 million people and has promoted English studies as a patriotic mission and a way to self-improvement. Conducting his audiences with propaganda slogans, Crazy English portrays a true self-made man, seen as a pop star or as a charismatic political dictator.

20 OCT. 21.30 – São Jorge (room 3) | 17 OCT. 22.00 – São Jorge (room 1)
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.

20 OCT. 22.00 – São Jorge (room 1) | 17 OCT. 21.30 – São Jorge (room 3)
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”.

20 OCT. 22.45 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 24 OCT. 15.00 - Londres (room 1)
Years When I was a Child Outside DF
John Torres
105´ Philippines 2008
A story that begins with the relationship between a father and a son: Rodolfo and John Torres. The first one, known as a successful self-help author and editor in the Philippines, watches his editorial empire decline and collapse. The event turns out to be a tragedy to his family who also get to know, not much later, that the father had always hidden another family. At this time, John decides to leave home and start a voyage of discovery that transforms itself into a meditation journey and a geographic chronicle.

20 OCT. 23.00 – Culturgest (large auditorium) | 17 OCT. 18.00 - Londres (room 2)
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.

20 OCT. 23.00 - Londres (room 1) | 17 OCT. 22.45 – Culturgest (small auditorium) | 24 OCT. 22.30 – Londres (room1)
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.

20 OCT. 23.00 - Londres (room 2) | 24 OCT. 18.15 – Culturgest (small auditorium)
We, Women Workers for the Sogantal
(Les Ouvrières de la Sogantal) SE
de Nadejda Tilhou
80´ França 2008
A luta das operárias da Sogantal filmada por uma equipa de televisão em pleno clima revolucionário pós-25 de Abril. Depois de terem sido abandonadas pelo patrão, o caso desta fábrica ficou inscrito como um dos episódios mais simbólicos da tomada do poder pelo povo e da “explosão social” que Portugal vivia em 1974. Numa luta liderada exclusivamente por mulheres, este é o exemplo paradigmático das convulsões vividas na época e um quadro de ascensão dos vários actores anónimos da sociedade portuguesa. Trinta anos depois, o que resta da luta das mulheres da Sogantal?

20 OCT. 23.30 – São Jorge (room 3) | 19 OCT. 22.00 – São Jorge (room 1)
Let’s Get Lost HB
Bruce Weber
120´ USA 1989
When Bruce Weber, a renowned fashion photographer, finally caught up with his idol Chet Baker, one of world’s best trumpeters in the history of jazz, the musician’s life was already a decadent world aroused by alcoholism and drug addiction. Let’s Get Lost sets itself as a voyage of contrasts between two distinct ages in an artists’ career: from the beginning of his early days in the 1950’s to his downfall in 1980’s last years. A movie that offers us rare footage of his first public appearances and interviews with friends, family, associates and lovers.

20 OCT. 24.00 – São Jorge (room 1) | 19 OCT. 21.30 – São Jorge (room 3)
Old Man Bebo HB
Carlos Carcas
111´ Spain 2007
The movie of a resurrection: Cuban pianist Bebo Valdês, a symbol of the golden age of Cuban music and one of the most influential musicians that combined jazz and afro-cuban rhythms with mambo, bolero and more recently flamenco. In an extraordinary portrait about the man and the artist, Spanish director Carlos Carcas establishes the sight of a unique career since the 1940’s with evocative footage and photos of Havana, from the communist revolution to his exile in Sweden, where Valdés married and raised a family, and the time when he fell in oblivion and became a cab driver, until his recent artistic comeback.