Lusophone Film Fest to return next month for second edition

The event is going to be held at Casa Garden

The second edition of the Lusophone Film Fest will be held in the city on November 18 and 19, showcasing six films about the Portuguese- speaking world. The festival is  designed to highlight these countries and societies to those who do not speak Portuguese.

The Portuguese-speaking world consists of countries spread across four continents, covering more than 270 million people worldwide. However, most film productions originating from these communities struggle to find exposure on a global scale.

“This festival allows people to see [for free] some cinema that comes from the Lusophone world,” said local organizer Isabel Figueiredo. “The films are not all in Portuguese – that’s a general misconception – they are in various languages and creoles,” but they all come from Portuguese-speaking societies.

The festival is aligned with two strategic initiatives of the Macau SAR government currently being implemented: the promotion of the city’s cultural and creative industries and the elevation of Macau into a platform for trade and exchange between China and Portuguese-speaking countries.

With the Macau-based Portuguese and Macanese people enthusiastic about such programs, the key lies in attracting mainland Chinese students, the organizer told the Times.

“I want to build bridges [between China and the Portuguese speaking world] but maybe I have not been that successful  yet,” said Figueiredo. “About one-third of the attendees [in May] were Chinese, but we did not have that many students from the mainland [as I had hoped].”

“One film this year is from Australia and it is about the maritime border with East Timor. I thought the Chinese might find it interesting as it shows the hypocrisy of Australia scolding the Chinese about maritime borders [in the South China Sea] when their own backyard is not that simple,” she said.

The organizer added that the topic discussed in the film was timely as Australia and East Timor, only last month, reached a resolution over the disputed territory, which contains large oil and gas deposits worth an estimated USD40 billion.

The Lusophone Film Fest is now in its second edition after its debut in May. It is an extension of an older festival born in Kenya with the same name, which has since spread to cities such as Sydney, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Addis Ababa and Zanzibar.

In May’s edition, the focus of the films was on Cape Verde, Macau, Mozambique, Portugal and East Timor. In this second edition, the films are from Portugal, Mozambique and Brazil and are about Guinea-Bissau, Timor and Cape Verde, according to a statement released by the organizer.

Screenings of the films will be held at Casa Garden free of charge on the evenings of November 18 and 19, starting from 6 p.m. The films are all subtitled in English.  DB

Doclisboa film festival currently playing

The Macau extension of Lisbon-based documentary film festival, Doclisboa, is currently being held and is showcasing a selection of 13 films. The festival kicked off yesterday with a film called Crash, which has been dubbed the “best local entry” for the Sound and Image Challenge 2016. Crash, along with three other Macau-produced shorts, were screened on the same day. The other films on the program are from Portugal, though at times the films are listed in conjunction with other countries. The one exception is the 57-minute film Macao Music Box, an exploration of the atmosphere of different communities in multicultural Macau. The festival is being held at the Dr. Stanley Ho Auditorium at the Consulate General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong and the documentaries are free to attend.