FOCUS ON PORTUGAL

“An armada of iceberg tips. No worries, they won’t melt in the hot Portuguese sun. Twenty titles, drawn from the rich cinematography of this small country with a complicated history, were included in the Focus on Portugal section of the 23rd New Horizons IFF. 

Its program reports from meetings and talks, film festivals and seminars, private screenings and what’s been learned by word of mouth. What is talked about and watched in Lisbon or Porto, Fundão or Arcos de Valdevez? Lend your ears, open your eyes, let’s unmask saudade together! – encourages the curator of the section, Agnieszka Szeffel.

Starting from the neorealism of the ‘60s, all the way to contemporary times. From Cinema Novo to new Portuguese cinema under the banner of Terratreme and Kintop, from mature masters such as Manoel de Oliveira, Fernando Lopes, António Reis and Manuel Mozos to independent experimentalists like Paulo Abreu, João Pedro Rodrigues and André Gil Mata. The Portuguese, fixed on the past, take on film mythology in an extravagant way. They see Lisbon as a source of a catastrophe, but one which they do not want to avoid. In their artistic visions directors Manuela Serra, Luisa Homem, Mariana Caló and Francisco Queimadela escape the city and post-revolution patriarchy into village outskirts and encounters with nature. Susana de Sousa Dias uses editing to mercilessly deconstruct historical narrations.”

curator: Agnieszka Szeffel (with help of João Ricardo Oliveira) / Details related to the section’s program can also be found on Bezruch filmowy. / Pełna Sala is the media partner of the Focus on Portugal section. / Instituto Camões and Embassy of Portugal in Warsaw are patrons of Focus on Portugal section.

FOCUS on Portugal full Programme