28/07/2020 - The gathering will kick off on 2 August with Babyteeth by Shannon Murphy and will close with Jenni Toivoniemi’s Games People Play

Espinho’s FEST - New Directors, New Films Festival has announced the line-up for its 2020 edition. This year, the festival – known for its strong industry programme – will mainly be focusing on its film programme, spread across three different cities (Espinho, Porto and Lisbon), with an online edition of the Pitching Forum, the only industry activity that has not been postponed. In this year’s Pitching Forum, 28 projects will be competing in four different categories (fiction feature films, fiction short films, documentary feature and short films in early development, and short feature and documentary films at advanced stages of production), vying for development and co-production awards.

The festival will run from 2-9 August, boasting four main competitive sections (Golden Lynx, Silver Lynx, National Grand Prix and NEXXT), as well as several non-competitive strands, including a focus on Latvian cinema (Flavours of the World), highlightsfrom Quentin Dupieux’s filmography (Be Kind Rewind), Drive-in & Midnight Sessions, and Special Screenings.

The opening and closing films, part of the Special Screenings programme, are two debuts by female directors: Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth and Jenni Toivoniemi’s Games People Play [+see also:
film review
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film profile]. Babyteeth is also part of the Golden Lynx Competition, which will include seven feature-length fiction films, such as Papicha [+see also:
film review
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interview: Mounia Meddour
film profile] by Mounia Meddour, Jumbo [+see also:
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interview: Zoé Wittock
film profile] by Zoé Wittock, Patrick [+see also:
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interview: GoCritic! Interview: Tim Mi…
interview: Tim Mielants
film profile] by Tim Mielants, Pacificado by Paxton Winters, Maternal [+see also:
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interview: Maura Delpero
film profile] by Maura Delpero and Wildland [+see also:
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interview: Jeanette Nordahl
film profile] by Jeanette Nordahl, as well as three documentary features: Lovemobil [+see also:
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film profile] by Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss, Meanwhile on Earth [+see also:
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film profile] by Carl Olsson and The Earth Is Blue as an Orange [+see also:
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interview: Iryna Tsilyk
film profile] by Iryna Tsilyk.

The Silver Lynx and National Grand Prix selection will showcase 70 short films, covering a plethora of genres from fiction and documentary to animation and experimental. Tomek Popakul’s Acid Rain (screened at festivals worldwide and possibly one of the most popular titles on the Oscars longlist), Konstantinos Antonopoulos’ Postcards From the End of the World (which won the Award for Best Comedy at the Aspen Festival at the beginning of the pandemic), and the Portuguese productions Erva Daninha by Guilherme Daniel, When the Light Goes Out by Tânia Prates and (In)dividual by Beatriz Bagulho are some of the highlights in this selection. These three Portuguese flicks will also be part of the National Grand Prix section, which will showcase a total of 16 shorts. The selection includes directorial debuts by several Portuguese filmmakers, but also new titles from more seasoned filmmakers: António Sequeira (winner of FEST’s 2019 National Grand Prix), with As Cartas da Minha Mãe; Miguel de Jesus (winner of Doclisboa’s 2019 MCFLY SPF Portuguese Competition Jury Award), with The Kiss; and João Monteiro, with Príncipe.

In total, FEST - New Directors, New Films Festival will screen more than 100 films in seven days. Its programme will unspool primarily in Espinho’s Centro Multimeios, with outdoor Drive-in and Mignight Sessions, while some of the competitive sections will also be showcased in Porto (at the Cinema Trindade and Reitoria da Universidade do Porto) and in Lisbon (at the Cinema Ideal).