This year’s festival highlights the intersection of artistic disciplines, offering audiences innovative experiences that blend cinema, music, visual arts, and virtual reality.
As part of the thematic program Europe does not exist, I've been there, the film The Passion of Joan of Arc, by Carl Theodor Dreyer, will be shown as a cine-concert with an original soundscape created by musician and producer Alex Fx. This project, stemming from the artist’s long-held desire, does not aim to "create a completely disruptive musical language out of sync with the era in which the action takes place," explains Alex Fx, but rather to explore "a symbiosis of classical and electronic instruments, providing a new sonic perspective to the visual monument that Carl Dreyer created." The cine-concert will take place on November 29 at 9:30 pm at Passos Manuel.
Aligning with this interdisciplinary approach, the festival, in collaboration with the Engawa exhibition at the Modern Art Center - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, will present two film programs exploring the documentary impulse in the moving image of Japanese artists. This program features the work of three prominent contemporary Japanese artists — Yu Araki, Chikako Yamashiro, and Kaori Oda — who use film and video to delve into Japan’s collective memory and cultural identity, often shaped through interactions with other nations, including Portugal. Moving from caves in Okinawa to horse racetracks in Hokkaido, the program highlights that documentary remains a vital expression in Japanese artists' cinema. Julian Ross, curator of the Engawa film program, will attend alongside Yu Araki to share insights into these unique works. Screenings will take place on November 28 and 29, at 5:00 pm and 5:15 pm, at Batalha Centro de Cinema - Room 2.
As part of the program, the festival will also present Liminal Spaces, an interactive virtual reality experience immersing the viewer in a surreal and solitary dimension. Throughout this journey, a mysterious character, trapped in this alternate reality, asks the participant for help in escaping, sparking a profound reflection on isolation and connection. This experience will be available on November 26 at 3:00 pm at Passos Manuel.
The festival will also screen Preemptive Listening, by Aura Satz, an experimental documentary that invites audiences to reflect on the role of alerts and sirens in a context of ecological disasters and global political tensions. With over 20 contemporary musicians creating siren compositions, the film raises questions about the necessity of alarms being disruptive and the importance of considering alternative sound designs for emergencies.
