In the 20th edition of Doclisboa, The Green Years section continues to follow and present the work of upcoming directors from all over Europe. This year, the competition comprises 21 premieres from 13 different countries. We partner with Le Fresnoy – National Studio for Contemporary Arts to present a focus on the early works created by its students throughout its 25 years of existence.
Green Years
GREEN YEARS — OPENING SESSION
Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini won the Best Green Years Film Award in 2021 and return to present A Soft Hiss of This World. We also point out the connection of two Portuguese directors to this year’s invited school, Le Fresnoy, by screening Fiesta Forever (Jorge Jácome) and Manhã de Santo António (João Pedro Rodrigues). A session where spaces are haunted by spectres of past memories and future possibilities.
09 Oct
— 16:00
/ 70’
Cinema São Jorge Sala M. Oliveira
Green Years - Opening Session
Fiesta Forever
Jorge Jácome
2016
/France, Portugal
/21’
Abandoned disco clubs, old dreams and future lovers. Director Jorge Jácome will be at the screening.
Morning of Saint Anthony’s Day
João Pedro Rodrigues
2012
/France, Portugal
/25’
The city at daybreak. A procession of worn-out bodies on their way back home, in a melancholic and mechanical choreography. Saint Anthony peacefully watches as the euphoria of the previous night gives way to apathy.
A Soft Hiss of This World
Federico Cammarata, Filippo Foscarini
2022
/Italy
/24’
The city of Vukovar, covered during the 90’s with rubble and corpses crammed on the streets, today is a controversial place of memory and symbol of the sufferings for Croatia’s independence. The film reflects on the silence of history. Directors Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini will be present at [...]
10 Oct
— 15:30
/ 108’
Cinema São Jorge Sala M. Oliveira
FOUL44
Tiago Bastos Nunes
2021
/Portugal
/13’
A look at the Alcochete invasion by a boxing coach under house arrest seeking redemption from his worst mistake. Four years later, the academic project remembers the media event, reflecting on the demonised agent of misinformation and sensationalism.
CEREAL / I Am Claudia, I Am Esther and I Am Teresa. I Am Ingrid, I Am Fabiola and I Am Valeria
Anna Spanlang
2022
/Austria
/35’
A kaleidoscopic mosaic juxtaposes images and stories from Spanlang’s cell-phone recordings. Her epos is not only an ode to sisterhood, but also a story of patriarchy and what it represents: colonialism, capitalism, environmental destruction and violence.
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Naama Heiman
2021
/Germany
/46’
“Peço a câmara ao meu colega de quarto para, fazer um filme sobre ele. Deveria ser um grande documentário. O problema é que tenho sentimentos por ele que ele não tem por mim, há uma nova pandemia mundial e estamos presos juntos na mesma casa.” Naama Heiman
Crater
Adina Camhy
2022
/Austria
/15’
Adina Camhy investiga o fenómeno de uma cratera enquanto metáfora e forma física concreta, o que resulta numa meditação sobre “memoriais dinâmicos” em torno da Cratera Ramon no Deserto do Negueve e da sua correspondente com o mesmo nome na Lua.
11 Oct
— 15:30
/ 90’
Cinema São Jorge Sala M. Oliveira
Enklave
Marco Balestri
2022
/Italy
/40’
Through the rediscovery of the largest Italian post-war POW camp, Enklave investigates the mechanisms of the collective memory repression. A cinematic gesture that reshapes the iconic images of an era to regurgitate them in the silence of the winter sea.
Fantasmagoría
Juan Francisco González
2022
/Chile, France, Switzerland
/14’
In the middle of the Atacama Desert, vestiges of the last nitrate industry are found, while the residents witness the crash of an industry located in the driest place on Earth.
Tea and Time
Salah El Amri
2022
/Switzerland
/20’
Um homem encarcerado recorda a sua infância e tempos difíceis do passado enquanto executa tarefas quotidianas. Um olhar poderoso e desconcertante sobre as consequências da privação de liberdade filtrado por um prisma distorcido.
the flower of her skin
Davina-Maria El Khoury
2022
/Belgium, Hungary, Portugal
/17’
“No tempo dos jacarandás, a Rosa leva-me numa viagem por Lisboa. Sigo-a pelas ruas floridas para explorar a beleza pelos olhos dela. A nossa relação começa a desabrochar lentamente enquanto vagueamos por uma cidade que estou prestes a deixar.” Davina-Maria
12 Oct
— 15:30
/ 88’
Cinema São Jorge Sala M. Oliveira
Flowers for My Father
Luís Afonso de Matos
2022
/Portugal
/17’
In 2005, Luís and Afonso, father and son, spend the first fortnight of August in Sonega, a village in Alentejo. The vacation, however, doesn’t go as expected. Tension arises from the father’s hidden past, causing their friendship to rupture.
Unterrotenstein
Sophia Schiller
2022
/Germany
/26’
Nos fins-de-semana, a fazenda de uma família torna-se no ponto de encontro de um círculo de amigos. As crianças desenvolvem as suas próprias dinâmicas infantilmente cruéis, impelidas por jogos de poder constantes. Um filme sobre a beleza dolorosa de crescer.
Yvo
Martin Mur
2022
/Spain, Switzerland
/10’
Yvo is the portrait of a grandfather, narrated through the lens of his grandson. A reflection on growing older, the passing of time, and the acceptance of death. A dance between a fantastic fable and the intimate portrait of a man who waits. Director Martin Mur will be present [...]
Home, Revised
Inês Pedrosa e Melo
2022
/Portugal
/28’
While trying to make a film that makes sense of home movies from her home country, Portugal, a filmmaker in the beginning of her career talks with other filmmakers in the hopes of understanding what it takes to make cinema out of archival images.
Wandering Song
Génesis Scarlet Valenzuela Valdez
2022
/Dominican Republic, Spain
/7’
A little girl narrates the myth of the original sin: a tear in the Garden of Eden. On the other side of that crack, a cold and bare bedroom. On the faded wall, a little piece of lost paradise. Director Génesis Scarlet Valenzuela Valdez will be present at the [...]
13 Oct
— 15:30
/ 105’
Cinema São Jorge Sala M. Oliveira
Bentuguese
Daniel Borga
2022
/Portugal
/16’
After school, a group of children gathers at Casa de São Bento, where a community project is located and they have the freedom to dream, play and grow. Inside a time machine, they think about their future.
The Imaginary House
Maxence Tasserit
2021
/France
/43’
Na vila de La Chaux-de-Fonds, na Suíça, um colectivo de artistas está a ser despejado da casa que vêm ocupando há seis anos. Com apenas um mês para encontrar uma solução, decidem pedir um novo sítio para morar directamente ao Estado.
Atopia
Olivier De Vos
2021
/Belgium
/18’
Atopia is an introspective essay about the search for a place that exists between reality and imagination: a placeless place made up out of dreams, chimeras and a desire for gender fluidity.
What Do I Look Like
Adèle Shaykhulova
2022
/France
/28’
Muhammad tem 23 anos e vive confinado a Paris. Enquanto a sua provação se arrasta, aguarda, tentando encontrar o seu lugar nesta cidade estranha onde a frustração de crescer e apanhar sonhos é mais poderosa e ingénua.
14 Oct
— 15:30
/ 89’
Cinema São Jorge Sala M. Oliveira
Summer Originally
Bianca Dias
2022
/Portugal
/9’
A realizadora caminha pela floresta, que ecoa as suas memórias. Recorda uma carta recebida 5 anos antes, escrita pela avó. A voz de Eugénia escapa-lhe por entre os ramos e a vegetação. Um diálogo intemporal entre duas mulheres a gerações de distância.
No Elements
Barbara Vojtašáková
2022
/Slovakia
/25’
Diálogo audiovisual entre dois jovens, Michal e Tereza. Quatro anos após a separação, reflectem de forma retrospectiva sobre a sua relação filmando em conjunto. Transformarão observações documentais num filme com uma história?
Postal Fever
Vasco Vasconcelos
2022
/Portugal
/32’
Uma viagem pelas possibilidades da memória enquanto corpo vivo. Pela experiência fugaz do momento irrepetível e a tentativa incansável de o registar e comunicar. Pelas várias formas físicas, verbais e mentais em que se cristaliza.
Waiting Room
Aleksandra Folczak
2022
/Poland
/24’
Durante o confinamento provocado pelo surto de coronavírus, a realizadora fala ao telefone com amigos e familiares. O filme regista confissões privadas de pessoas que procuram adaptar-se a esta situação incomum – os seus desejos, necessidades e emoções.
LE FRESNOY – NATIONAL STUDIO FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS
We invite Le Fresnoy – National Studio for Contemporary Arts to present a focus on the works produced by the students throughout its 25 years of existence. This art and audio-visual research centre’s approach seeks to break the barriers between medium and language. Great contemporary filmmakers have attended it, including Portuguese ones, such as João Pedro Rodrigues, Miguel Gomes, Jorge Jácome and Ico Costa.
12 Oct
— 11:00
/ 99’
Cinema São Jorge Sala 3
A Moon Made of Iron explores the disappearance of three people in the high seas, while Swatted, a practice of breaking into people’s houses by American special forces, questions the difference between what’s virtual and real in videogames. Natural Process Activation #3 Bloom follows two people with lights searching for dandelions. In, Over and Out revisits the exit of Le Fresnoy. Redemtpion looks for the salvation of four people in their lives.
A Moon Made of Iron
Francisco Rodríguez
2017
/Chile, France
/29’
I realized the Sun was out and it was cloudy. Something seemed strange, so we got off the motorbike and had a look around. And I noticed that there was a dead person. I thought so and that is also what my dad said in the newspaper.
Swatted
Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis
2018
/France
/22’
On-line players describe their struggles with ‘swatting’, a life-threatening cyber-harassment phenomenon that looms over them whenever they play. The events take shape through Youtube videos and wireframe images from a video game.
Natural Process Activation #3 Bloom
Hicham Berrada
2012
/France
/6’
“This plant, a dandelion, whose existence is due only to one breath, is a bed of thoughts that we had to film, like two robbers, without harming nothing.” Daniel Dobbels [...]
In, Over and Out
Sebastian Brameshuber
2015
/Austria, France
/11’
Using multiple cameras, the film shows students leaving Le Fresnoy art school in a tribute to the Lumière brothers that links labour and art practice across the centuries.
Redemption
Miguel Gomes
2013
/France, Germany, Italy, Portugal
/27’
On January 21 st 1975, in a village in the north of Portugal, a child (Passos Coelho) writes to his parents who are in Angola to tell them how sad Portugal is. On July 13 th 2011, in Milan, an old man (Silvio Berlusconi) remembers his first love. On May 6 th 2012, [...]
13 Oct
— 11:00
/ 75’
Cinema São Jorge Sala 3
The main character of this session is matter in its manifold declensions. We Knew how Beautiful They Were, These Islands unveils a puzzling ritual. All Movements Should Kill the Wind invites us to ‘feel’ the stone while it is being worked upon. Archipelagos, Naked Granites reflects upon identity under the tacit eye of the Acropolis. The Men Who Wait takes us to a coal mine where occasional meetings filled with tenderness and loneliness take place.
We Knew how Beautiful They Were, These Islands
Younes Ben Slimane
2021
/France, Tunisia
/21’
At night, a dark and enigmatic ritual in which a solitary figure digs graves, buries dead people and watches over them. The personal belongings of the deceased, separated from their owners, speak their own silent language.
All Movements Should Kill the Wind
Yuyan Wang
2019
/France
/13’
“200km from Beijing, I found a factory where men lived among stones that were waiting to be broken, cut, polished. This history is obliterated in the making of monuments. With the wind that inexorably disseminates the traces of these actions.” Yuyan Wang [...]
Archipelagos, Naked Granites
Daphné Hérétakis
2014
/France
/26’
Athens, 2014. Between bereaved desires and lost hopes, a film diary bangs against the walls of the city: the daily life of a country in crisis, the inertia of revolution, individual issues confronting political matters, survival facing ideals.
The Men Who Wait
Tru’óng Minh Quý
2020
/France, Singapore
/15’
On a slag heap, where coal miners used to tramp, men are now meeting to share moments of intimacy. Today, as in the past, those who cannot find a shelter live here. Home is far away, returning is impossible. Human beings need more than water and a tent.
14 Oct
— 11:00
/ 81’
Cinema São Jorge Sala 3
The limits between reality, memory and fable aren’t always clear, and in this session they get confused. Isabella Morra records the crude life of a group of children from Boulogne-sur-Mer. In Atlantics, the account of a sea crossing acquires the strength of legend. A Idade da Pedra unearths a history of exploitation, prophecy and myth. Corrente tells us the mystery of a man gone missing the day after being released from prison.
Isabella Morra
Isabel Pagliai
2015
/France
/23’
Vaguely based on the homonymous play by André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Isabella Morra follows a group of children in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Isabel Pagliai records their portraits with displaced looks and the cruelty of their conversations and games.
Atlantics
Mati Diop
2009
/France
/16’
Dakar, 2009. Late into the night, three friends gather around a fire. Serigne tells Cheikh and Alpha his epic journey to Spain, from where he has just been repatriated. He has only one idea in mind, jump in the first boat and go to sea again.
The Age of Stone
Ana Vaz
2013
/Brazil, France
/29’
A voyage into the far west of Brazil leads us to a monumental structure petrified at the centre of the savannah. Through the geological traces that lead us to this monument, the film unearths a history of exploitation, prophecy and myth.
Current
Ico Costa
2013
/France, Portugal
/13’
A man gets out of prison and disappears the following day. He is last seen searching for his criminal friend. Resorting to repetition and the progressive deterioration of the image, one represents his frustration in reaching freedom without finding peace. Director Ico Costa will be present at the screening.