2017 Spring
Lisbon Bull Award (aka ‘Best of the Fest’)
& Best Narrative Short Film
Valencia (United States) by Logan George
Catherine’s early morning drive is interrupted when she’s faced with an accident on the side of the road. Accosted by calls from her estranged sister and late to the reading of her father’s will, but the only one on the scene, she forces herself to exit her car.
Best Narrative Feature Film
Young and Miserable or a Man Screaming is not A Dancing Bear (Brazil) by Thiago B. Mendonça
A group of artists test the borders between art and life. With theatre, music and performance art in public spaces, they try and create a revolutionary consciousness. They join the protests against the 2014 World Cup and witness violence and police repression. But the nearer the spectacle comes, the wider the cracks in the collective's solidarity. The dream of art influencing life is overtaken by life itself. Made on a minimal budget, the film is a powerful portrait of a young generation of political artists and was inspired by an essay by Pier Paolo Pasolini in which he criticized materialism – and by the surreal poetry of Aimé Cesaire.
Best Documentary Feature Film
Atentamente (Colombia) by Camila Rodríguez Triana
ATENTAMENTE is a film that, through the sensation of the time passing by and the presence of the death that wanders into a nursing home, allows us to feel the life through the illusion that love brings along. Libardo and Alba, a couple of elders who met each other at the nursing home where they live, they fall for, they become boyfriends and start to struggle in order to find fifty thousand pesos to rent a room for one night at a hotel so they can have a privacy moment, since at the nursing home where they live is not possible to have that. While struggling they must face each other, face their fears, their limitations, their pains, their time as well as their fragility so they can construct that moment in which they meet love. A struggle that seems to be easy, but for them is an odyssey against time, against their limitations and their own ghosts.
Best Documentary Short Film
Drag Kings (United Kingdom) by Elizabeth Valentina Sutton
Drag Kings is a short documentary exploring the staunch and resilient spirit of people who perform masculinity on stage. The film follows three drag kings from across the UK struggling with the inequality that they face within the drag community. In the shadow of drag queens, the kings are creating art that holds a mirror up to what it means to be human, rather than simply being defined by their assigned gender.
Best Animated Short Film
Flutter (United States) by Vladimir Todorov
FLUTTER is a short animated film about despair, hope and the power of love. FLUTTER ’s main character, Fleo, is trapped in a body that keeps him pinned to the ground. While others can defy the laws of gravity and fly freely above his head, Fleo can only watch from a distance. He is an outcast, destined to trudge through life. But desperation leads to innovation, and then to an unexpected discovery. With a pair of wings strapped to his back, Fleo’s first attempt at flying becomes a heart-stopping rescue mission. After saving the life of a helpless stranger, Fleo has to make a choice. Does he continue on his flight path, or does he go back to being “grounded”? Realizing that love and companionship are more powerful than the laws of gravity, Fleo embraces his impediment, and lets his heart do the soaring instead.
Best Underground Film
Our Own Private Universe (United States) by Ben Balcom
Our language is unreliable. Is meaning adding up or emptying out? Through these possible scenes we simply need these actors to play their parts in order to mask the wilting of a fiction. They talk all at once. What do they say? Which lives do they speak of? To have been is not enough for them. Our dialogue is uncertain. In the meantime, let them converse calmly, since they are incapable of keeping silent.
Best Experimental Film
Blank Girl (Belgium) by Alain Tjiong
Blank Girl.
Only a face of a woman.
The face of cinema.
Only a surface.
Shimmers in the dark.
Shadows of the night.
We are calling to you.
Come, and haunt us.
Best Portuguese Cinema Now
Bohemians (Portugal) by Dúbio
Rafael is a young up-and-comer photographer. As he starts getting success in his professional life, he starts dating the woman of his dreams, only to find his ex-girlfriend still haunts him. All of this is narrated by Rafael, now in his 60's, reading pages from an old journal, as his memories get mixed up with his dreams.
