Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” won best film at the 17th edition of the LeFest Lisboa film festival, which announced the awards on Saturday night.
It is Aris’ first feature film since the 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Son” and is receiving almost universally positive reviews. Diversity It was called “a sad ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” was screened in Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.
During LeFest, in a session moderated by Paulo Branco, 83-year-old Erice took part in a conversation with the prominent 64-year-old Portuguese director, Pedro Costa, whose short film “The Daughters of Fire” had a special screening of Cannes and its Portuguese debut at the festival. The premiere also took place.
During a highlights event of the festival Aris commented that both he and Costa are working in the shadow of two great filmmakers – “Don Luis Buñuel” and “Don Manoel de Oliveira” – and he said that while he feels That Costa has managed to do. “Find your place and your people, positing the idea of community, among a humiliated and hurt people,” on the contrary, he has suffered “a certain solitude, a certain inner exile.”
Aris previously worked with Pedro Costa on the omnibus film “Historic Centre”, shot in Portugal during the Guimarães European Capital of Culture in 2012, also starring Manoel de Oliveira and Aki Kaurismäki.
LeFest is directed by Portuguese producer Paulo Branco. This year’s jury was chaired by director Elia Suleiman, alongside Fanny Ardant, Nitin Sawhney, Rachel Kushner, Georgi Gospodinov, Khalik Allah and Adriana Moulder.
The fest’s João Benard da Costa Jury Grand Prize went to Rodrigo Moreno’s “The Delinquents”, calling it “a deliciously bizarre existentialist heist film.” Diversity,
The Jury Prize went to Radu Jude’s “Don’t Expect Too Much from the End of the World”, “a brilliantly quirky work-culture satire”. Diversity,
Cedric Kahn’s “The Goldman Case” received a special mention from the jury – and actor Bianca Delbravo won a Jury Special Prize for her performance in Mika Gustafsson’s “Paradise Is Burning.”
In the Discoveries competition, the TAP Revelation Award was awarded to “Pet Shop Days” by Olmo Schnabel and “Grandmother’s Footsteps” by Lola Peplow. The jury included Leonor Silveira, Selma Umuse and Pedro Amaral.
17th The LeFest edition of the Lisboa film festival ran from 10–19 November in Lisbon.