Miguel Valverde, one of the founders and responsible for the IndieLisboa Festival, was born in Portimão and it was here that he began to write and become interested in cinema, when he was still a teenager. That's why, alongside Lisbon and Porto, Portimão is the stage for the premiere, this Thursday, 19th of May, of the film «Here, in Lisbon – Episodes of the life of a city», which he produced.

"I really wanted the film to premiere at the same time in Lisbon, Porto and Portimão, as it was my first production with the biggest breath, and this was achieved, thanks to the collaboration of Mr. Matos, from Algarcine", said Miguel Valverde , in an interview with Sul Informação.

«Here, in Lisbon – Episodes of the life of a city», after having been shown in several international festivals (Rio Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Turin Festival, BAFICI – Buenos Aires International Festival of Cine Independiente, among others) , is now making its debut in Portuguese theaters, by NOS Lusomundo Audiovisuais.

From this Thursday, 19th of May, the film will be screened in Lisbon, Porto and Algarve at Cinema Ideal, NOS Amoreiras, NOS Dolce Vita Porto, UCI Lisboa and Algarcine Portimão.

The adventure of "Aqui em Lisboa", a film that combines fiction and documentary, passing through the worlds of fable and absurd comedy, and made with four hands, began three years ago. It was produced on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of IndieLisboa and is the result of the invitation that Indie sent to four of the directors who have marked the history of the festival and who produce, today, some of the most emblematic films of independent cinema: Denis Côté (Les États Nordiques, 2006; Curling, 2011; Beasts, 2012; and Boris sans Beatrice, 2016, premiered in Berlin), Dominga Sotomayor (winner of the Grand Prix Cidade de Lisboa, in 2012, with from jueves to sunday), Gabriel Abrantes (winner of the award for Best Portuguese Short Film at IndieLisboa 2016 with The Hunchback) and Marie Losier (winner of the Grand Prix Cidade de Lisboa, in 2011, with The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye).

«The idea was to invite directors with great recognition on Indie, but also that, when they came here, they felt that the city of Lisbon could be the setting for their films», explains Miguel Valverde.

«Dominga Sotomayor, for example, who is Chilean, has the landscape of the city of Santiago de Chile very present in her films. And the look she has on Santiago is very similar to the way I feel the city of Lisbon», adds the now film producer.

«What was intended were directors who understood the city of Lisbon not from a tourist point of view, but from someone who is very close».

The film includes four stories, each filmed by one of the four guest directors: Denis Côté, Dominga Sotomayor, Gabriel Abrantes and Marie Losier. «It was a challenge for each one of them to come here to film a story they had thought up, against the backdrop of the city of Lisbon». And the results, despite their common points, could not be more different. But, interestingly, the movie works as a whole.

Miguel confesses that he thought of the project based on the “New York Stories”, in the sense of building a mosaic of different images and visions of the same city. "The directors had total autonomy, none of them knew the other's history, and I, as a producer, was just redirecting them to film in different places."

However, «as the shootings progressed, they found things in common and that became recurrents of the film», reveals Miguel Valverde. What things? «Fish, for example, is common to almost everyone. What also appears all over the place is fado. Even in one of the stories, in which the music is jazz, there is an allusion to the place where Amália was born. It was nothing we asked of them. The four directors arrived at these things in common by themselves».

And how did this first experience as a film producer go? Miguel Valverde recalls that he had already produced «experimental short films in 2011», but nothing with this breath. "It's very different to work with international filmmakers, especially when two of them shot on film," he tells Sul Informação.

The film, which is now finally making its commercial debut in movie theaters, has also been making its way to festivals around the world, either as a whole, in feature-length format, or each of the stories as a short film. . In the latter case, “new versions, slightly longer, of each of the segments” are presented.

But the film that is premiering today in five theaters in Lisbon, Porto and Portimão (Algarcine), is the full-length, full-length version. Will it be a tape to please a very wide audience? Miguel Valverde admits, without problems: "it's one of those films that you either love or hate!" We'll see!

Watch the trailer:

Here in Lisbon

Denis Cote, Dominga Sotomayor, Gabriel Abrantes, Marie Losier

Documentary, Fiction, 2015, 88′, DCP

Plot: Denis Côté, Dominga Sotomayor, Gabriel Abrantes, Marie Losier

Photographs: André Santos, Diogo Costa Amarante, Jorge Quintela, Rui Xavier

Sound: Marco Leão, Rafael Cardoso, Miguel Cabral

With: Francisca Castillo, João Canijo, Carloto Cotta, Cláudia Leal, Martinho de Jesus, Joana de Verona, Patrícia Leal, Carloto Cotta, Sónia Balacó, Gabriel Abrantes, Filipa Anika, David Phelps, Cláudia Jardim, Joana Barrios, Natxo Checa, Norberto Lobo, Deborah Krystal, Cindy Scrash, Alda Cabrita, João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata, Simon Damour, Carlos Conceição, Bernardo Lacerda, Antoine Barraud, Didier D'Abreu, Pedro Pereira, Eduardo Moreira

Producer: Michael Valverde

Production: IndieLisboa – Cultural Association

Countries: Portugal