24th July 2007 – Presentation of the Queer Lisboa 11

The goal of Queer Lisboa – Lisbon Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is to screen noteworthy new films, portraying and resulting from the various social realities of queer individuals and communities all over the world, which are normally inaccessible to wider audiences. Films that are not always easy, and certainly somewhat uncomfortable and edgy. Films that, nonetheless, have an ever increasing presence in the film festivals of the world.

This, the 11th edition of Queer Lisboa, maintains at its nucleus the Competitive Sections for Best Feature Film, Best Documentary, and Best Short Film. Looking at the fiction films in competition for Best Feature, we cannot help but reflect upon the heritage, the construction of a history, the aesthetic and narrative lines characteristic of queer cinema. The Competitive Section for Best Documentary also aims to offer a representative sample of this genre, and the quality and recognition it has attained. Short Films also deserve their own section, as an Audience Award.

In parallel to our main programme, the Short Film Panorama, devoted to productions prior to 2006, also deserves to be singled out.
The festival will also be honoured to showcase, two TV ads Against Homophobia, from Germany, the result of an exemplary social project – both for its inspiration and final result.
The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros was certainly one of the biggest success stories on the queer Festival circuit of 2005 and 2006, and the festival will screen it in a Centrefold Screening on Friday night.

One of this year’s biggest surprises, however, is the retrospective of a Portuguese Gay Cinema of the Seventies. Between 1975 and 1978, Óscar Alves directed a series of short and medium-length films that are the utmost example of an unjustly forgotten cinema; they serve to pose significant questions upon the lack of continuity and production of a clearly queer cinema in Portugal.
Finally, a further element to be highlighted in this year’s programme is the Queer Pop Section, devoted to queer expression in music; it will feature two documentaries and three compilations of music videos. The latter genre is quite new; however, it has fully succeeded in approximating major filmic languages. Various forms of thinking and living the body, in its articulation with music and cinema will be the central theme of these sessions.

In the spirit of our stated mission – promoting the reflection upon issues stemming from queer filmic narrative and aesthetics – the Festival has organised three debates, one upon Homosexual Characters in Portuguese TV Fiction, another on Portuguese Gay Cinema of the Seventies, focusing on the retrospective of films by Óscar Alves and, inspired by our closing film, Green Flowers, or the Importance of Being Wilde, where the influence of the Irish playwright upon pop culture will be discussed.

The programmers of Queer Lisboa 11 have selected 88 titles for this edition, from a total of over 300 queer films, mostly produced in 2006 and 2007, viewed between February and May of this year. Approximately a third of the 300-plus were received as a result of a call for submissions. The final programme of the festival and its schedule will receive a public presentation during a press conference at the Cinema São Jorge on the 4th of September at 11.00.

João Ferreira
Director, Queer Lisboa
Vice-President, Janela Indiscreta Cultural Association