The director of LEFFEST - Lisboa Film Festival, Paulo Branco, presented today, in the Archive Room of the Paços do Concelho, the program for the 18th edition of the festival, which will take place from November 8 to 17. He was accompanied by the the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, and the executive administrator of NOS, Daniel Beato.
The opening films will be the big winners of the Venice Film Festival - Pedro Almodóvar's The Room Next Door, Golden Lion for Best Film, and Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, Silver Lion for Best Director.
The festival's competition presents 12 feature films competing for the NOS Grand Prize and includes the best films produced in 2024, among them works by renowned authors such as David Cronenberg's The Shrouds, Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig or Rithy Panh's Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot, as well as newcomers such as Portuguese Laura Carreira, with On Falling, winner of the Silver Shell for Best Director at the San Sebastián Film Festival.
In the Official Selection - Out of Competition, we'll see several of the titles that will be dominating cinemas and the awards season in the coming months, such as All We Imagine as Light, by Payal Kapadia, Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; Emília Perez, by Jacques Audiard, Best Actress / Ensemble Award at Cannes; Bird, by Andrea Arnold; The Dead Don't Hurt, by Viggo Mortensen; and Oh, Canada, by Paul Schrader, among others. World premieres include O Ancoradouro do Tempo, by Mozambican Sol de Carvalho, and Longe da Estrada, by Portuguese Hugo Vieira da Silva and Paulo Mil Homens.
In the Discoveries section, nine feature films that were major revelations throughout 2024 are competing for the TAP Revelation Award.
The festival is dedicating retrospectives to some of the most important names on the international scene - Michael Haneke, whose films for television and cinema have never before been shown in theaters; Jonás Trueba, one of the most outstanding filmmakers of the new generation of Spanish cinema, who will accompany a complete retrospective of his work with actress Itsaso Arana; Patricia Mazuy, who will also be present to accompany the premiere of her last two films: Bowling Saturne and La Prisionnière de Bordeaux; Miguel Gomes, this year's winner of the Best Director Award at Cannes, who will have his first complete retrospective in Portugal.
There will be two series in the spotlight. Families Like Ours, by Thomas Vinterberg, will be shown in preview and in its entirety, in a one-off screening with the director in attendance. On the other hand, the festival will give the world premiere of O Americano, by Ivo M. Ferreira, with a screening of the first four episodes and the presence of the director and cast.
In 2024, LEFFEST presents three thematic cycles that address issues of great relevance to our time. The cycle Images of War - The War of Images proposes a critical reflection on the way war is represented and consumed visually, with a cycle of 20 films and debates featuring figures such as Rithy Panh, Leila Shahid and Nida Ibrahim. The series will be accompanied by the new exhibition “War and Peace”, with photographs by Marie-Laure de Decker and Noël Quidu.
The Palestine cycle sets out in search of Palestinian memory and artistic resistance through cinema, poetry and the visual arts. In addition to film screenings, talks will be organized with Elias Sanbar, Shlomo Sand, Simone Bitton and Elia Suleiman, among others.
The highlight will also be the Make Freedom Ring - Concert for Palestine concert, which will raise funds for Doctors Without Borders. It will take place on November 11 at 9pm at the Tivoli BBVA Theater. This international project brings together renowned musicians such as Rasha Nahas, António Victorino de Almeida and Anja Lechner, in a concert curated by pianist Raúl da Costa.
The visual artist from Gaza, Khaled Jarada, will also have his first exhibition in Portugal, presented at the Teatro do Bairro. Through animation and drawing, Jarada metaphorically portrays the experiences and emotions of those living in conflict zones.
With Erotic Cinema — Challenging the Limits, the festival revisits the concept of eroticism in cinema, in a cycle of two dozen films that explore moral challenges and the limits of the body and desire. Curated by Denis Ruzaev and Ines Lopez Branco, it includes a special cine-concert with a screening of Louis Feuillade's masterpiece Les Vampires, in a restored version, accompanied live by Rodrigo Amado Unity.
Celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões, LEFFEST is organizing Camões em Carne Viva, a programme combining poetry, music and cinema, with the premiere of the Cinemateca's restored copy of Camões (1946), by Leitão de Barros, followed by a debate.
The centenary of Franz Kafka's death will be marked with the special program The Impossibility of Being Kafka, where important film adaptations of his works will be presented and a meeting with the acclaimed director Krystian Lupa will be organized. As part of this tribute, the film Kafka geht ins Kino by Hanns Zischler will be screened, and he will be present for a talk. On November 12, at 6pm, the Auditorium of the Liceu Camões will host the concert Kafka - (un)musical ! (?), conceived by Nuno Vieira de Almeida.
The musical program for this edition of LEFFEST includes other unique moments, such as the film-concert Der Rosenkavalier on November 10 at 5pm at the Tivoli. Richard Strauss' famous opera is the basis for Robert Wiene's silent film, which will be shown in a restored print, accompanied live by the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Pedro Amaral.
On November 15, at 9pm, the Tivoli will host an unprecedented concert by Bonga, in homage to Angolan politician, writer and poet Mário Pinto de Andrade, which will be accompanied by a reading of poems by the honoree. The concert is a celebration of Andrade, portrayed in the film Mário, by Billy Woodberry, which will be screened at the festival.
The visual arts will also feature prominently with an exhibition dedicated to Carlos Cobra at MUDE - Lisbon's Design Museum. Cobra was born in Alcácer do Sal and lives in Paris, where he went in the 1960s and won the most important sculpture prize in Europe, the Prix Bourdelle. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to delve into his extraordinary work, which is practically unknown in Portugal.
Click for photos of the press conference.