6th LGLFF – Education and citizenship

Education is the art of throwing light on that, which is latent in each of us.

This is the our proposal for the 6th edition of the Lisbon Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which over the course of six years has become one of the most relevant events in the national cinematographic calendar. It is a sample of alternative cinema that reflects the diversity of renewing energies and a manifestation of the vitality that stimulates the city’s respect for, and fascination with the mystery of differences.

This year the look is from the inside out, a form of initiation in the search for inner forces that teach us to understand and act in the exterior. Perhaps one of the major problems of our society is the growing number of informed people with neglected souls. Minds and bodies that remain in the penumbra of ideas, through lack of opportunity or an opening. It is a human rather than a political question.

An attitude has to begin with us, from within the community itself. This year the themes that are identified take on a more profound and reflective perspective: the urgent need to educate for honourable concepts such as citizenship, respect, tolerance and liberty. Recent political changes in the world, apathy and contempt as regards poverty and exclusion, fundamentalism leading to terror, the surprising growth in Europe of Far Right parties with their discourse of hate and discrimination, the suffering of waiting for a cure that will wipe out the virulence of HIV in the entire generation, are current problems that leave us uneasy and disturbed.

It seemed opportune to change the theme of the Festival, which, in 2002, was to have been about the Fetish, and present our contribution to this worrying reality by presenting films that educate and bring meaning to heartfelt questions.

In my sixth year as director of this event, I have tried to offer a careful selection of 73 films that all together speak for themselves. I drew up this programme to attain two objectives:

1. To show each work, in its entirely and excellence, for its merit and beauty grouping them into related themes that form a relationship of ideas.

2. To use this relationship to explore the concepts of Education and Citizenship in the way we see the world, se that this apprenticeship will make us rethink this issue of affections.

In this way highlighting ways of fighting obscurity for a place in the sun. In her incursion into the favelas, Monica Treut reveals a Brazil lacking adequate methods to defend and integrate street children that the activist Yvonne Bezerra de MelIo fights to project from human indifference. It is an inspiring film and a surprising testament about a real “Warrior of Light”, who symbolically marks this opening to the social questions the Festival puts forward.

Another example that provides an excellent object lesson is Oliver Button is a Star by John Scagliotti, based an the children’s classic “Oliver Button is a Sissy” by Tommie dePaola, which takes a sharp look at contemporary society through the education of children for citizenship. The spectre of illness and alienation surrounding HIV/ AIDS is also present in the intimate form of dealing with sentiments, diluted o the director subtle approach of films such as Le Fate Ignorati be Ferzan Ozpetek, Ma Vie en PIus by Brian TiIIey and the brilliant Song from an Angel by David Weissman.

The Transgender Nights and the parallel cycles of FNAC and the Cinema Alemão (Germen Cinema) open the Goy and Straight proposals that have become a successful tradition throughout the various editions. This year films were chosen from among more recent international films and many are competing for the audience award for the best short, feature and documentary film.

The economic situation and political changes that he country is undergoing have led to some budget cuts due to a reduction in subsidies. This has caused among other things an absence of Portuguese subtitles, which we greatly regret, with the exception made by Cinemateca Portuguesa, which has quite fantastically guaranteed subtitles for the majority of their sessions.

Despite restrictions, the Lisbon Municipality has contributed to and supported this event, for which we are most grateful. Our thanks also go to ICAM which has maintained the subsidy granted every year to help with the payment of rights to exhibit the films, to Cinemateca which has accompanied us on this adventure of believing in a different cinema, to FNAC which in fostering culture has adhered indefatigably to this project, to the Goethe Institut, which has always helped us with the sane enthusiasm, and to the Cine-Paraíso that this year has kindly granted us a new space for films. We thank them all for their support and commitment. Our grateful thanks alsa go to the Spanish Embassy, the Instituto Cervantes, the Instituto Franco-Português, lo ATL (Associação de Turismo de Lisboa), Lusomundo, Luffhansa, Beta Films, OCV (O Circa a Vapor), Saga Viagens, which is promoting the audience award, and to the many volunteers who have once again contributed so decisively lo the success of this event. Again our sincere thanks.

I hope that this Festival, and the programme, will be a step forward against prejudice, indifference, despondency and apathy, se that in some way the soul may leave its hiding place se that all of us lovers of the cinema, in the widest sense of the term, will be educated to appreciate diversity and the noble causes that still make us dream.

Celso Júnior