The 5th Edition of the Lisbon and Estoril Film Festival has certainly ended on a high note. LEFF’11 had all the main ingredients to become its best edition to date (as was predicted last week) but only time could tell if this was truly going to be an edition to remember. The programme promised a week long of high-quality events and it surely delivered.

It is one of the youngest Film Festivals in Europe but other veterans should definitely learn a thing or two from LEFF. Paulo Branco’s Lisbon and Estoril Film Festival proved worthy of the buzz surrounding it in international media outlets.

Every screening began punctually (apart from minor technical glitches) and the price of the admission tickets was very cheap, considering they allowed access to premieres and masterclasses with actors, directors, and producers. Most of the screenings were presented by one of the actors in the film, a movie critic or producer and after it a small discussion regarding the film was held.

According to LEFF’s director Branco, this might have possibly been the best edition yet, and who are we to doubt his words? In a recent interview, Branco also admitted that upcoming editions should be held in both Lisbon and Estoril, in a partnership with Lisbon’s City Hall.

Even though most of the movies shown are not what one would expect to see in a regular movie theater, most of the screenings were sold out and were incredibly entertaining.

All of the movies were divided in categories: the Official Selection, Retrospective, Tribute, Cinemart (including features by Matthew Barney and Yasmina Reza), In Memoriam, Rare Filmmakers, Film Heritage Preservation (with the cooperation of the Martin Scorcese and the World Cinema Foundation), Cinema and History, and several Special Screenings of feature films and television series.

The big winner of the Festival was Twilight Portrait, by Angelina Nikonova, as it took home the award for Best Feature. Twilight Portrait tells the story of a social worker who decides to take on her dramatic past and it is Nikonova’s debut as a film director. Cédric Kahn’s Une Vie Meilleure won the Special Jury Award – João Bénard da Costa, as well as the Cineuropa Award.

Other special mentions include Here I am, by Bálint Szimler and Aman (Safe and Sound) by Ali Jaberansari. LEFF ended on a winning streak as Almodóvar’s latest (The Skin I Live In) was shown to an eager audience in Lisbon, with the presence of Jan Cornet and Marisa Paredes. In Estoril, Melancholia by Lars Von Trier closed the Festival but hopefully LEFF’s next edition will come soon enough.  

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A press release from the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival from the last days of the LEFF ’11 event i the capital of Portugal reads;

What if file‐sharing was legalized and access to culture on the Internet set free? Would the copyright disappear? Would it cause the downfall of creation or on the contrary foster it? What mechanisms should be instituted to funds authors and artists while fostering cultural diversity?

These are some of the main questions that were raised by international artists, academics, economic agents and institutional decision‐makers during a two-day multi-disciplinary Symposium held in the Estoril Congress Center.

“It has been an amazing opportunity to confront academic, artistic and economical perspectives” stated Jim Griffin. “The digital era offers a great visibility and fantastic opportunities for artists: the Web has become nowadays an indicator of their success”, as underlined Frederic Junqua, founder of Kitsune and the electronic musicians LOGO and PARA‐ONE. It also brings some difficulties that are not yet fully addressed.

The specificity of a cultural good is that it can be shared by an infinite number of people. This is the reason why some artists, like Yasmina Reza, have expressed their concern about economical and artistic dispossession of their work with P2P systems on the Internet. Whilst agreeing, filmmaker Bertrand Bonello insisted that it should not be forgotten that the new usages of accessing and sharing digital media can be a wonderful tool to enhance cultural diversity and the relationship between the artist and its audience.

The debates on cinema, an industry with numerous actors and high financial investments, focused on the new experience of the cinema for the audience. If the financing of cinema is still in mutation, nowadays filmmakers can find advantages in the multiplicity of the distribution methods, whether they are legal or illegal.

If Jean‐Marie Compte, Director of the Literature Department at the French National Library, considers the libraries as essential elements of the access to literature, he joined Aurélie Filippetti in saying that digital media could be an extension to this public activity. Eventually, the authors of the table agreed that finding new ways of retribution for authors to strengthen their Copyright remains a strategic issue for the future.

Whatsoever the artistic medium, “finding new paradigms for the future that go beyond repression is not synonym of sacrificing culture and creators“ concluded Paulo Branco, director of the Festival.

The symposium has been organized during the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival by the European think tank Jeune Republique in collaboration with the French platform on cultural policies Creation Public Internet.

Image Courtesy: http://www.leffest.com/en/fotos_ano

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The 5th edition of the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival (LEFF), happening in Portugal from November 4th to 11th, opened up last weekend with the presentation of several awards in its inauguration gala, attended by most of the festival guests, including actor Paul Giamatti, directors Luc Dardenne and Leos Carax, cinematographers Peter Suschitzky and Christopher Doyle and jury members and writers J.M. Coetzee and Don Delillo.

A “Life Achievement Award” was given to William Friedkin by festival director Paulo Branco. Friedkin, director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, is the subject of a tribute in this year’s festival and his most recent film, Killer Joe, was the festival’s opening movie. A ‘Tribute Award’ was also given to Wes Anderson, who thanked the audience and the festival in a video clip made specifically for the occasion.

Tribute awards were also given to Leos Carax by Sophie Calle and to Peter Susuchitzky by Paul Giamatti. A festival “Best Friend Award” was also given to Nobel Literature Prize winner J.M. Coetzee by Paulo Branco.

Most sessions for the weekend’s movie premieres — such as Killer Joe, from William Friedkin, Restless from Gus Van Sant, The Ides of March, from George Clooney and A Dangerous Method from David Cronenberg sold out, as well as masterclasses with actor Paul Giamatti, cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Peter Suschitzky, directors Luc Dardenne, Leos Carax and JR and writer Peter Handke.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the masterclass Working with David Cronenberg, that reunited in Estoril director David Cronenberg, actors Paul Giamatti and Sarah Gadon, producer Paulo Branco, cinematographer Peter Suschitzky and rapper K’Naan.

The audience that crowded the Estoril Congress Center auditorium, and that included jury members Don Delillo, J.M. Coetzee, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, was able to watch, in a worldwide premiere, a trailer of the David Cronenberg’s movie Cosmopolis, based on the novel by Don Delillo.

A lively discussion of both movies, A Dangerous Method and Cosmopolis, followed. Several exhibitions were also inaugurated. “Work in Progress” presents Spanish famous artist Miquel Barceló’s latest works in a much awaited world premiere.

And photo exhibitions such as “Observations of Life” and “Nudes”, by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, ”Drive by Night”, by cinematographer Darius Khondji and “Gaza 2010”, by photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer (winner of the Carmignac Gestion Prize for photojournalism) offer the public different views of life from behind the camera lenses.

Music is also very much a part of this festival. Rapper K’Naan made a presentation of the impressive videos he did while returning to his native homeland Somalia and afterwards he performed some of his songs to a crowded theater, making several breaks to talk with the public and answer several questions.

Randall Poster, the famous movie music supervisor, was DJ for one night at a LUX, the most famous Lisbon club. And virtuosos Gidon Kremer and Giedre Dirvanauskaite enchanted the audience with a wonderful concert that featured pieces from Poleva, Kancheli, Bach and Sofia Gubaidulina.

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The International Symposium fully dedicated to the Copyrights within the Internet era, that the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival brings to the Centro de Congressos do Estoril on November 11th and 12th, will be a pluridisciplinar gathering, of universal reach, artists, academics, economical agents and institutional decision-makers around a rather important theme now-a-days.

Through three roundtables, dedicated to Music, Cinema and Literature, the International Symposium will seek to confront different, and even opposite opinions, but mainly complementary about the copyrights within the Internet era.

Writers Paul Auster and Don Delillo, Harvard University teachers and Berkman Centre director Willizm W. Fisher, State Secretary for Culture Francisco José Viegas, playwriter Yasmina Reza, French National Library Director Jean-Mare Compte, singer Sophie Auster, writer and French Deputy Aurélie Filippeti, music producer Fréderic Junqua and the DJs and internationally renown DJs Para One and LOGO will be some of the participants of this Symposium.

The limelight of this symposium will be fully handed to the artists themselves, so they can finally share and express their view points without the media and political haste. And so that new and conscience perspectives can be found.

This gathering with international ambition is organised in collaboration with the Sciences Po Paris and its Ecole de Arts Politiques, together with think tank Jeune République and the public forum platform Création, Public, Internet. The content and conclusions of this symposium will be published under the Creative Commons licence.

Program:

Friday, November 11th, Centro de Congressos do Estoril

11am-1pm: Music — with the presence of Frédéric Junqua (producer, music editor), Jim Griffin (founder of Choruss), Jean Baptiste de Laubier (Para One), Hugues Tonnet de Parrel et Thomas Desnoyers (LOGO), Paulo Furtado (The Legendary Tiger Man), Sophie Auster.

Chaired by Jérémie Zimmermann (La Quadrature du Net)

3pm-5pm: Cinema – with the presence of Éric Garandeau (CNC President), Yasmina Reza (playwriter, director), Bertrand Bonello (director), Haden Guest (Harvard Film Archive director), Joaquim Pinto (producer and director).

Chaired by Paulo Branco.

6pm: Special session — Exclusive Interview with Jean-Luc Godard - L´ogre et le petit poucet, 50’ – presented by João Lopes (film spoken in French with Portuguese subtitles and with instant translation in English).

Saturday, November 12th, Centro de Congressos do Estoril

11am: Opening Speech by Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins (National Centre for Culture President and Court of Auditors President)

11.30am – 1pm: Literature – with the presence Don Delillo (writer), Paul Auster (writer),
Aurélie Filippetti (French deputy, writer)  Jean-Marie Compte (National French Library), João Rodrigues (editor), Siri Hustvedt (writer).

Chaired by Philippe Aigrain.

3 pm: Opening Speech by Professor William W. Fisher (Harvard) – Alternate compensation systems

4 pm: Final debate

4.30pm: Final Speech by State Secretary for Cultura, Dr. Francisco José Viegas

Get to know the full Festival programme on  www.leffest.com

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The Lisbon and Estoril Film Festival (LEFF), formerly known as Estoril Film Festival, is making a name for itself as one of Europe’s leading film festivals. As a newcomer, the festival has been able to bring big names from the film industry since its debut in 2007. Some who have taken part in the event have included Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, Oscar-winning actor John Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve, and Kathryn Bigelow.

The festival takes pride in awarding the best of the best in the movie industry while creating a meeting point for artists and performers of the trade in the capital of Portugal.

The best distinguishing feature is the fact that there is no red carpet at most of the screenings, even at the premieres. One could simply stand in line waiting to get inside and Paul Giamatti or David Cronenberg could walk by you and even stop by for a chat.

Movies competing in the official selection are mostly European films, and some of the movies shown are already generating Oscar buzz. The festival will premiere “A Dangerous Method” (David Cronenberg),” The Ides of March” (George Clooney), “Melancholia” (Lars von Trier), “Restless” (Gus van Sant). “Faust,” directed by Alexander Sokurov and the winner of the Berlinare and the Venice Festival’s Golden Lion, will also premiere at the festival.

This is undoubtedly LEFF’s best edition to date. It hosts a jury panel of world-renowned authors, such as Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee, and will showcase the first images of Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis,” starring Robert Pattinson. In addition, LEFF will also host several events simultaneously in some of Lisbon’s most iconic venues. The festival proves its versatility while dabbling in other areas, holding events specially aimed at college students, classes with Giamatti and Cronenberg, musical concerts, an international symposium on the future of the culture industries, ateliers, and several other exhibitions.

One of the main attractions of the festival is an exhibit on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which portrays the everyday life of a Palestinian village. The work is by photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer, winner of the first Carmignac Gestion Foundation Photojournalism Award.

If you happen to be in Lisbon in November 3 to November 14, be sure to check out LEFF. It is an event you don’t want to miss.

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