LEFFEST turns 20 with David Cronenberg heading the jury and four films on opening night
Paulo Branco's Lisbon film festival runs from 6 to 15 November across five screens. James Gray, Martin McDonagh, Cristian Mungiu and Lee Chang-dong open it, 11 films compete, and Lars von Trier gets a complete retrospective.
The man handing out LEFFEST’s top prize this year is David Cronenberg. The director of The Fly and Crash chairs the jury at the festival’s 20th edition, which runs from 6 to 15 November at São Jorge, Nimas, Culturgest, Teatro do Bairro and, for the first time, the NOS cinema at Vasco da Gama in Parque das Nações.
Four openings in one night
Friday 6 November starts on four screens at once. São Jorge hosts the opening ceremony with James Gray’s Paper Tiger. Culturgest kicks off with Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, Vasco da Gama with Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, and Nimas with Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, a Netflix production whose only cinema screening will be this one. Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti, closes the festival on the 15th.
The competition
Eleven features are up for the Grande Prémio NOS. Steven Soderbergh is there with The Christophers, alongside Christophe Honoré, Mario Martone, Radu Jude and Kantemir Balagov, plus one Portuguese co-production: Fanny Ardant’s Ela Olhava sem Nada Ver, shot in the Azores. Cronenberg’s fellow jurors are Angélica Liddell, Charles Burnett, Milagros Mumenthaler, violinist Gidon Kremer and Andrea Camprincoli.
Out of competition you get films that will be talked about for months, from Alex Gibney’s documentary Musk to Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care. Danny Boyle’s Rupert Murdoch drama Ink, which Netflix picked up before Venice, is on the list too.
All of Lars von Trier
The headline retrospective is Lars von Trier’s complete work. The Danish director cannot travel for health reasons, so the actors, cinematographers and editors who made those films with him are coming instead. There are also strands on Kelly Reichardt, Lee Chang-dong, Sophie Letourneur and Portugal’s Tiago Guedes, and a tribute to Barbara Sukowa, who chairs the Discoveries jury and joins Cronenberg for a conversation at the screening of M. Butterfly, the film they made together.
Times and tickets are on the festival’s website, screen by screen. If you only have one free evening, 6 November gives you the most to choose from.
Image: Canadian Film Centre / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
