The five best films from IndieLis­boa 2016

Now in its 13^th year, the IndieLis­boa Inter­na­tion­al Inde­pen­dent Film Fes­ti­val offers the peo­ple of Portugal’s cap­i­tal a chance to see a wide array of new films from around the globe, as well as attend a bunch of awe­some accom­pa­ny­ing par­ties and con­certs. We had a swell time at this year’s instal­ment over its final week­end, encoun­ter­ing enthu­si­as­tic audi­ences, cool venues spread out across the city, and a cinephile cul­ture keen to take things well into the night – seri­ous­ly, some of the screen­ings start super late. Here’s five high­lights from our stop-over…

We’ll admit: some of our most antic­i­pat­ed films at IndieLis­boa end­ing up screen­ing with­out Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. As such, Marce­lo Felix’s exper­i­men­tal Por­tuguese film, Paul, held some con­sid­er­able appeal, being that it cen­tres around a film sub-titler and the curi­ous rela­tion­ship she devel­ops with the film she’s work­ing on. Switch­ing back and forth between the sub­ti­tler (who nev­er speaks) in her office and the footage she’s work­ing on, Felix’s film fre­quent­ly toys with our bear­ings by warp­ing or remov­ing the sound from the films with­in the film, rewind­ing sub­ti­tle-free footage not in Por­tuguese to then present it again with the protagonist’s added sub­ti­tles and replay­ing sce­nar­ios with dif­fer­ent per­form­ers on-screen. The enig­mat­ic qual­i­ties of this 71-minute fea­ture even­tu­al­ly move towards tedi­um, but this was def­i­nite­ly one of the more for­mal­ly inter­est­ing titles on offer.

Ger­man doc­u­men­tar­i­an Lutz Gre­gor makes his the­atri­cal fea­ture debut with this road movie music doc. The title refers to a band of musi­cians of Malian descent, who com­bat the impo­si­tion of Sharia law in Mali by fight­ing for peace and free­dom of speech with their fiery lyrics and per­for­mances. Among the assem­bly are young rap­per Mas­ter Soumy along­side Fatouma­ta Diawara, who some may recog­nise from her role in Abder­rah­mane Sissako’s Tim­buk­tu. Though there are a few mem­o­rable visu­al setups out­side of the con­cert scenes, which take us from Bamako in the south west of the region to Tim­buk­tu in the north, Gregor’s style is rel­a­tive­ly unos­ten­ta­tious. He knows his great­est asset is sim­ply let­ting the dynam­ic per­form­ers have their say, spo­ken or sung. Cred­it, too, for not shy­ing away from com­men­tary on the West’s part in the rise of Islam­ic rad­i­cal­ism in the country.

Regard­ing his fourth fea­ture, Roman­ian direc­tor Adri­an Sitaru offered up the fol­low­ing quote cir­cu­lat­ed in the IndieLis­boa pro­gram­ming: ​“I would like the spec­ta­tors to reflect about what love can mean in extreme con­di­tions.” One of those extreme con­di­tions is thrust at view­ers almost imme­di­ate­ly, with a 15-minute reunion scene that swift­ly becomes an extend­ed ver­bal fight between a patri­arch doc­tor and his adult brood. The kids have inad­ver­tent­ly dis­cov­ered that under the Ceaus­es­cu régime, their father report­ed women try­ing to get abor­tions, and sees noth­ing immoral about his actions. And then after that, we dis­cov­er that the youngest of the kids, two twen­ty-some­thing twins, are secret­ly lovers, and are sud­den­ly fac­ing the prospect of a baby on the way. An abor­tion dra­ma by way of black com­e­dy, Sitaru most­ly avoids his film com­ing across as shal­low taboo-push­er through inti­mate Dogme-style shoot­ing and a strong cast, work­ing with large­ly unscript­ed mate­r­i­al beyond basic scene out­lines. It doesn’t all land, but it’s cer­tain­ly memorable.

With a Berlin Sil­ver Bear for direct­ing already under its belt, Mia Hansen-Løve’s fol­low-up to Eden arrived at IndieLis­boa with enough pri­or pres­tige to land it the prime clos­ing film slot. Rather than revis­it the notion of fad­ed youth that arguably formed much of the back­bone of Eden and Good­bye First Love, the director’s new work sees a notice­able shift in her pre­oc­cu­pa­tions. Here the pro­tag­o­nist is Isabelle Huppert’s Nathalie, a mid­dle-aged phi­los­o­phy teacher not yearn­ing for her younger days, but rather calm­ly try­ing to assess where her life can go in the future, after her hus­band of 25 years con­fess­es to hav­ing an affair. Mean­while, her over­bear­ing moth­er (Edith Scob) seems not long for this world, and Nathalie’s per­spec­tives are con­stant­ly being ques­tioned by the free-spir­it­ed ways of her off­spring and a for­mer pupil (Roman Kolin­ka). By nature of its small­er-scale focus, Things to Come lacks the grander cumu­la­tive punch of Eden’s two-decade sprawl, but this is still one of France’s best work­ing film­mak­ers at the top of her game; pack­ing more bit­ter­sweet nuances into small moments than most films can man­age with one big emo­tion­al outburst.

After Olmo and the Seag­ull (see our pre­vi­ous report), Robert Greene’s non-fic­tion fea­ture Kate Plays Chris­tine offered IndieLisboa’s oth­er notable film con­cern­ing an actor inter­ro­gat­ing the notion of per­for­mance, as well as the valid­i­ty of a director’s instruc­tions and intent. Here, actor Kate Lyn Sheil metic­u­lous­ly pre­pares to por­tray the role of Chris­tine Chub­buck, a real-life news reporter who attempt­ed sui­cide on live tele­vi­sion in 1974, lat­er per­ish­ing of her wounds in hos­pi­tal. Four decades on, no footage of the inci­dent exists in the pub­lic sphere, being that it hap­pened a few years before the advent of VCRs. It’s almost an urban leg­end, mak­ing it par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult for Sheil to immerse her­self in the world of this unknow­able fig­ure. And then the ques­tion aris­es of the actu­al worth of attempt­ing to make dra­ma out of this depressed vic­tim of tragedy – the moral com­pli­ca­tions and issues of account­abil­i­ty and empa­thy that arise. Weav­ing between Sheil’s research process­es, a retrac­ing of Chubbuck’s known steps, and delib­er­ate­ly ster­ile, spec­u­la­tive re-enact­ments of events lead­ing up to the sui­cide, the cumu­la­tive effect of Greene’s film is a thor­ough­ly unset­tling expe­ri­ence. It’s fas­ci­nat­ing in its acknowl­edge­ment of the inabil­i­ty to know someone’s inner world, let alone con­vey it with any degree of sup­posed truth.