Queer Lisbon Portugal celebrates 30th anniversary with big display

Portugal’s renowned Queer Lisbon International Queer Film Festival, which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary, kicks off on Friday with a major program showcasing the latest in LGBTQ cinema, from established filmmakers to new voices, as well as a retrospective of underground counterculture and revolutionary work by radical filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Lisbon’s oldest film festival “Queer Lisboa” was launched in 1997 in Portuguese cinema as the Lisbon Gay Film Festival, opening with the 1950 short film “Un chant d’amour”, the only film directed by French novelist and playwright Jean Genet, whose credits include the famous adaptation of “Querelle de Brest” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Lisbon Queer Arts Director João Ferreira said that the festival’s origins in the Portuguese Film Center are one of the factors that distinguish it from other queer film festivals in Europe. type.

“From the beginning, I would say that this festival was not conceived as a festival only for the LGBTQ community, because it had institutional support from day one. So I think it is a very special case for a queer festival in Europe. That is certainly not the case for some festivals that started more or less at the same time, like Madrid or Paris.

“The audience has been a very broad audience from the beginning, an audience interested in movies, an audience of cinephiles,” Ferreira added. “Of course, it’s also because in the first three years, it was organized by the ILGA Portugal Chapter [the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association]it also has a very important community aspect. ”

Ferreira noted that the festival’s perspective on queer cinema has never been solely based on narrative. “It’s much broader than that. We’re interested in queer ways of looking at the world. We’re interested in camp aesthetics. So we’re looking for very different types of films that can fit that idea.” That perspective, he adds, dictated the festival’s eventual direction. “The festival later became known as the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, but that idea was already weird at the time because of the way we looked at movies.”

The 30th “Queer Lisboa” Film Festival, with a total of 94 feature films, documentaries and short films, will be held from September 18 to 26 at regular venues such as the Portuguese Cinema and the São Jorge Cinema.

Boasting a strong line-up that includes some of the year’s top LGBTQ films, the festival kicks off with the Portuguese premiere of The Man I Love, starring Rami Malek and Ira Sachs, whose previous films PeterPassage and . Leah Nelson’s critically acclaimed animated series Tangles concluded the event.

Featuring nearly a dozen sections, including five competition categories and six non-competition sidebars, the festival offers a wide range of showcases. New this year, Queer Family is dedicated to children and their families and focuses on culturally rich independent films that explore themes of inclusion and identity. The program consists of two Brazilian features: Allan Deberton’s Berlinale Award-winning film “Gugu’s World” and Priscilla Kellen’s animated “Papaya.”

Ana David, programmer and director of Queer Lisboa, said attracting a younger audience is a long-term goal.

The new section is aimed squarely at families, and the festival has already received positive feedback from interested parents.

“We’ll look at whether it’s kids bringing their parents, or parents bringing their kids. It’s important for us to work with younger audiences who will also be the adult audience for the festival in the future,” David said. She added that the new section also provides opportunities for parents and children to have an intergenerational experience and even talk about things after the screening.

The festival has already sold a large number of tickets to screenings of “Queer Family.” “We think this will work very well,” David said.

As LGBTQ cinema has grown and grown in appeal, Queer Lisbon has been seeking a balance between popular mainstream work, new discoveries, and the more radical experimental films that have long defined queer cinema.

“We want this series, big movies and small movies,” Ferreira said. “One of the joys we have as programmers is discovering these smaller, more independent, sometimes more DIY filmmakers and filmmaking, and we try to incorporate all of that into programming. It’s challenging.”

Ferreira added that while it is much easier to obtain films now than it was 30 years ago, it has become more difficult to sift through the large number of available titles and curate the more than 90 films screened at the festival.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, an expanded retrospective exhibition has been launched, which contains 19 works, including the Wachowski sisters’ 1996 debut “Bound,” “Bound,” “Bound,” “Bound,” and more. Sally Potter’s Orlando (1992), Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art (1998), Patrice Sherrow’s The Wounded Man (1983), Kim Longinotto and Arno Williams’ British documentary Shinjuku Boys (1995), and Frank Kloprod’s Taxi (CC Rum) from West Lord.

David pointed out that this year’s show is particularly interesting because Queer Lisboa is entering its 30th anniversary, while London’s BFI Flare is turning 40 and San Francisco’s Frameline is turning 50. These festivals, as well as the Chéries-Chéris in Paris, provided inspiration for this year’s retrospective.

“It speaks to the longevity of queer cinema and to film festivals that have long been promoting and expanding the knowledge and appreciation of queer cinema,” David noted.

For Queer Lisbon, this is an opportunity to look back at early films that are rarely screened in Portugal, even though they are already considered classics among queer cinema. “We wanted to provide some classic books that people know and can participate in reviewing, but also provide some new content for them to learn and thereby expand their knowledge,” David added.

One important factor is presenting the film in a restored or digitized version.

David pointed out that this is the first time that “Orlando” has been shown in Portuguese cinemas. “They actually have a 35mm print, so it’s great that we can have an excuse to show the film.”

“Then take it out of the cabinet,” Ferreira quipped.

Also on display is a newly restored version of João Paulo Ferreira’s subversive 1976 queer musical comedy Fatucha Superstar, inspired by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar.

The film, made in the aftermath of the revolution that swept away the dictatorial dictatorship in Portugal, profanely mocks in an extremely kitsch manner one of the main pillars of the former regime, the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima and the Christian symbolism surrounding it.

Along with Oscar Alves, João Paulo Ferreira was part of the rebellious and independent gay filmmaking movement that produced some of the first queer films in post-revolutionary Portugal. Together they founded the film collective Cineground and screened their Super 8 films in Lisbon’s queer bars and nightclubs in the 1970s.

Returning talent and exciting discoveries this year include Portuguese filmmaker André Godinho and the world premiere of his debut film Nothing Left, which has been described as a Portuguese queer version of Punishment Park; German artist duo Benjamin Ramírez Pérez and Stefanrez Stefanrez Losing Everything , their first feature-length hybrid documentary about the life and work of Canadian poet Lynn Crosbie. Both films were entered into the Queer Arts Competition, which showcases experimental, boundary-pushing work that “explores the limits of film language, genre and narrative.”

Other highlights include the Swiss-French feature Summer Drift, directed by Céline Carridroit and Aline Suter, and the European premiere of Public Access, David Shadrack Smith’s seminal story of television in the 1970s and 1970s.

This year’s diverse lineup includes special screenings of Pedro Almodovar’s A Bitter Christmas and Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, while the festival’s non-competitive Panorama sidebar showcases recent international festival favorites such as Queen Jim; Maspalomas; Outland; and Queen Jim.

Competitors for this year’s Lisbon Queer Feature Film Competition are:

“Black burns fast” Author: Sandulela Asanda (South Africa)

“On the way,” Author: David Pablos (Mexico)

“Strange River” Jaume Claret Muxart’s (Spain, Germany)

“La Gradiva” Author: Marine Atlan (France, Italy)

“Ivan and Khadoom” Author: Ian de la Rosa (Spain, Germany, Belgium)

“Julian,” Author: Cato Kusters (Belgium, Netherlands)

“London,” Author: Victor Di Marco and Márcio Picoli (Brazil)

“anger,” Author: Ryan Machado (Philippines)

The entire Lisbon Queer Project can be explored here.