Films by Solveig Nordlund, Pedro Pinho, Leonor Noivo, Ross McElwee, and Eva Stefani are also scheduled for the 23rd edition of Doclisboa – International Film Festival, running from October 16 to 26, announced the organizing body, Apordoc – Associação pelo Documentário.
“With Hasan in Gaza,” directed by Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, and making its Portuguese debut at the festival’s opening, is described as an “urgent homage to resistance in Gaza.” The film, constructed from footage shot in 2001, follows the director and his friend, Hasan Elboubou, as they search for a former cellmate, detained together in 1989 as teenagers.
For Doclisboa, this work is a “road movie” through “a territory in resistance” where the everyday lives of its inhabitants coexist with the constant violence of occupation. The film is considered unique in the director’s oeuvre, providing a counterpoint to “the current genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
The director describes it as “a tribute to the people, to everything that was erased” and brought back to memory “in this urgent moment of Palestinian existence, or nonexistence.” Kamal Aljafari characterizes the work as “a film about catastrophe and poetry that resists,” having earned the Europa Cinemas award at the Locarno Festival in August.
The closing film of Doclisboa will be “The Tree of Knowledge,” by Franco-American director Eugène Green, who has shown keen interest in Portuguese reality with films such as “A Religiosa Portuguesa” (2009), “Como Fernando Pessoa Salvou Portugal” (2018), and “Lisboa Revisitada” (2019).
In his new film, also making its Portuguese debut, Green returns to Lisbon to weave a tale about a teenager, an ogre, and a dark pact, described by the festival as “a critique not always veiled of the way the city has surrendered to tourism.”
“The Tree of Knowledge” is a Portuguese-French co-production between O Som e a Fúria and Le Plein de Super, featuring performances by Diogo Dória, Leonor Silveira, João Arrais, Ana Moreira, and Rui Pedro Silva.
Doclisboa’s program will also include the premiere of the complete version of “O Riso e a Faca,” a film by Pedro Pinho awarded in Cannes last May (Best Actress for Cleo Diára in the Un Certain Regard section), as well as Portugal’s first screenings of “Bulakna” by Leonor Noivo, which won an award at the latest edition of FID Marseille, and “Remake,” marking the return of American director Ross McElwee to cinema after 14 years.
These three films are part of the non-competitive program “Journey to the Moon.”
In the “Heart Beat” section, “Memórias do Teatro da Cornucópia” by Solveig Nordlund will be presented as a world premiere. The work is constructed using archive footage from various productions by the company founded by Luís Miguel Cintra and Jorge Silva Melo, spanning from its inception in 1973 until its closure in 2016.
This section will also feature the international premiere of “Bull’s Heart” by Greek director Eva Stefani, documenting behind-the-scenes of the “Transverse Orientation” performance by choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou and its European tour. The production was staged at the Teatro Rivoli in Porto and the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon in December 2021.
In June, Doclisboa announced a retrospective dedicated to the documentary cinema of American director William Greaves, in collaboration with Cinemateca Portuguesa.
The full program of Doclisboa’s 23rd edition, including competitive sections, will be revealed on the 25th, as stated by the organizers.
