Dateline: Sept. 2022
I just interviewed Portuguese Director, Catarina de Sousa (partnered with Nick Tyson) whose 27-min brilliant Short, “Tracing Utopia” aka “Em Todos os Tipos de Clima” about NY LGBTQ students having Safe Places before, during (and after) Da Ronas Pandemic. This was one of 118 films representing 31 countries playing here in Porto Femme (5th Festival). Fantastic series of Shorts all week and a few Features: Documentaries and Fiction all through the tireless efforts of Directors Ana Castro and Rita Capucho!!
Below are actually interviews or Q&As post viewing in Lisbon’s 20th Annual Doculisboa IFF which took place Oct. 6 – 16, 2022.
In video: Martina Selva discussing her fantastic “The Ethologist“, about a young teen looking for answers how to “act” as a “normal” human when starting to date. Annie Leclair expounding upon her revealing “Grounded” how disabilities can produce the most creative results, and Ina Lopez connecting the dots breaking terrible “squirting” and other antequated myths in her fascinating “Fontis Nympha“.
For more in-depth footage; interviews with other Directors from this and August 2022’s World Cinema Amsterdam please visit
please excuse the sound qualities
or
On Humpday at Midnight at Zero Lodge Box Hotel the 5th Porto Femme held a “Vagina Time” Special Session – which was along the lines of Dr. Emily Nagoski brilliant “Come As You Are” [Netflix “The Principles of Pleasure’] or last century’s “The Vagina Monologues” [1996 – Eve Ensler] – with some pretty provocative Shorts, including the last – a slightly disturbing “Mens Plaining” where a women celebrate their periods in an unprecedented way.
Still, great conversations over glasses of wine and a small group who braved the rains and remain in the storm of usually taboo feminist issues. Still exciting that two other men were there to hear and spread what we’ve learned.
So many favorites to choose from but it couldn’t have begun with a bigger BANG than with Juliette Klinke’s “In the Silence of an Abyssal Sea” aka “Dons le Silence d’une Mer Abyssale”, or the starkly different Black Mirror-esque – “Mind Blank” – “Blanco ne Mente” by Ana de Alva. “Curiosa”, “Em Todos os Tipos de Clima” by Tessa Moult-Milewska, “Listen to Me”, by Paula Armijo, the cinematically stunning, “Kanya”, by Apoorva Satish, “The King in a Cage”, by Paula Loffler and “What My Fingers Knew” by Marta Basso.
One of my favorites from the 12 or so Student Competitions is “The Delivery” (Rozwiqzanie) by Polish Director Katarzyna Sikorska, whose varied issues include pressures women face trying to bare children to remain in relationship, immigrant surrogate mothers and the myriad abuses, fears and uncertainties, natal care for such “victims” birthing in silence, what happens when birth is perfect, power struggles and separation.
Additionally, others from a myriad of categories were “Pele” or “Skin”, by Victoria Catarino, “Ma Mer” by Sofia Tavares, “Green House” or “Flor de Estufa” by Lais Andrade, “Klimax”, by Bea Hoeller and the FAB-u-LOUS “Pluma” by Clelia Goodchild!!
Longer features, “La Tana“, “The Den“, by Italian Director Beatrice Baldacci.
“The Criminals” [Les Criminales] aka “Suçlular”, by Director Serhat Karaaslan https://youtu.be/T54Jlz1Z1vI
Starring Deniz Altan, Lorin Merhart, Cem Baza, Banu Fotocan. In a town in Turkey, a young couple looks for some nookie – only to find extreme restrictions on such unwanton and downright ILLEGAL behaviors…
Sex as a dangerous activity, not due to STDs nor possibilities of pregnancies but socially unacceptable?
Do Epic Shit 