Animation on the big screen with MONSTRA

Premieres, historic works, world premieres, special sessions and tributes are some of the proposals of those who organize and work behind the scenes at the Lisbon Animation Festival🇧🇷

belleby Mamoru Hosoda

Preview: March 16, Cinema São Jorge | Manoel de Oliveira Room

A standing ovation for 14 minutes at its Cannes premiere, 5 prestigious nominations annie awards and box office records in Japan and the United States. The new film by Mamoru Hosoda and Chizu studios will have its national premiere at MONSTRA and promises to also be a success story in Portugal. The award-winning author of films such as mirai🇧🇷 wolf children or summer warsalready shown in previous editions of the festival, presents us with the story of Suzua shy girl like so many others, who lives and studies in a small rural village and who one day enters an impressive virtual world, transforming herself into belle, a beautiful and world-renowned singer. In an era of exponential growth in digital forms of communication and socialization, the author presents us with a very current work, with the ability to move us but at the same time make us think about issues of human reality and identity.

Fleeby Jonas Poher Rasmussen

DOKANIM section: March 17, Cinema City Alvalade

The animated documentary always has a reserved space in the MONSTER and this year there will be several works present in the DOKANIM and Perspectives sections. The big highlight goes to the movie Flee by Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, who tells the story of his friend Amin who, as his wedding approaches, is compelled to reveal a hidden facet of his past. Forced to leave his home in Afghanistan as a child, Amin looks back on his life, revealing his trauma, the truth about his family and coming to terms with his own sexuality. Selected in 2020 for Cannes, this work has toured festivals around the world, winning among others the Grand Prix of the Sundance Jury and the Crystal of Annecy, and is also nominated in four categories for the annie awards and three for the 2022 Oscars.

Fritz the Catby Ralph Bakshi

TRIPLE-X section: March 18, Cinema City Alvalade

THE MONSTER pays tribute to 50 years of Fritz the Cat, Ralph Bakshi’s debut film, which became the first adult animated feature in the United States to receive an X rating. As part of the festival’s Triple-X section, which also includes a contemporary shorts session, Bakshi’s film is based on a comic book by Robert Crumb and presents itself as a satire full of black humor, social and political criticism, unusual in animated films of the time with a large audience. A film not to be missed and which is part of a set of works for the anniversary present in the programming of MONSTERwhere we also highlight the 75 years of spalicek by Czech director Jiří Trnka, a puppet animation work that will be shown at the Cinematheque.

Anri Koulev and the Bulgarian Animation Retrospective

March 19, Cinema São Jorge | Manoel de Oliveira Room

The guest country of honor for the 2022 edition of the MONSTER it’s Bulgaria and the good excuse is the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Animation department at the then National Institute of Cinematography in Bulgaria. It will be a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in a cinematography that is little known in Portugal, but full of narrative and aesthetic “pearls”, with names that have become internationally known for the quality of their art. Among the 10 sessions to be presented, we highlight the world premiere of Softly Said🇧🇷 the new film by the greatest figure in Bulgarian animation, Anri Koulev, director and professor at the Nova Universidade Búlgara, in Sofia, who will be present in Lisbon together with an important delegation of artists, curators and specialists in animation cinema from this eastern country from Europe. His drawings are also on display at an exhibition at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, in Lisbon.

Émile Reynaud and Émile Cohl

Film-concert with Jacques Cambra on the piano

21 March, Cinemateca Portuguesa

A concert film that travels back to the birth of animation at the end of the 20th century. XIX and beginning of the century. XX, with works by the two most important pioneers of French cinema: Émile Reynaud (1844-1918), artist and inventor who, on October 28, 1892, held the first public projection of animated images in Paris, the famous Pantomimes Lumineusesusing a projection system he created which he called Optical Theater and which preceded by 3 years the first public projection of the Cinématographe the Lumière brothers; and Émile Cohl (1857-1938), author of phantasmagorie🇧🇷 one of the first cartoon films known and which is considered by historians as a turning point in the creation of a language of animation cinema distinct from real image cinema. The works of these authors will be accompanied on the piano by Jacques Cambra, associate artist of the Arras Film Festival and resident pianist of the La Rochelle International Film Festival, who is coming to Portugal as part of the 2022 Portugal-France Cross Season.

Short Film Competition

March 21st to 25th, Cinema São Jorge | Manoel de Oliveira Room

43 films from 21 different countries, selected from over a thousand competitors and spread over 5 sessions. The Short Film Competition MONSTER presents, as usual, a program characterized by a wide variety of ideas, messages, aesthetics, artistic proposals and animation techniques. Some are presented in national or world premiere while others reach the MONSTER with a journey already filled with international awards, such as the cases of beastthe chilling thriller by Hugo Covarrubias, or the fun Affairs Of The Artwith the British humor of Joanna Quinn, both nominated for the 2022 Oscar. From fiction to documentary, from narrative to experimental film, five programs not to be missed for anyone who wants to stay up to date with what has been done the best in the last two years worldwide in short form.

Spit Bob, We Don’t Like Peopleby Cesar Cabral

March 24, Cinema São Jorge | Manoel de Oliveira Room

After working in the formats of short films and TV series, Cesar Cabral makes his first feature, having been awarded at the prestigious festivals of Annecy and Ottawa and featured in the shortlist of the Oscars. It is a documentary made in a very original way and revealing an impressive mastery of the difficult and laborious technique of puppet animation. The central figure is spit bob, the iconic 80’s cartoon character who lives in a post-apocalyptic wasteland created inside the mind of his creator, the famous Brazilian cartoonist Angeli. The film is in the feature film competition, which also features the first works in this format by three authors whose work in short films is already part of the history of animation cinema. They are the Czech author Michaela Pavlátová with My Afghan Familythe French Florence Miailhe with The Crossing and the Japanese Koji Yamamura who brings us dozens of north🇧🇷

Electronic Theater – Ars Eletronica

March 24, Cinema São Jorge | Room 2

The biggest electronic art festival in the world presents MONSTER O Electronic Theater, a session that includes some of the best animation works from the 2021 edition selected by the jury, productions that are characterized by combining their artistic content with cultural and technological innovation. The session will be presented by Jurgen Hagler, researcher, university professor and curator who in 2017 took over the direction of the Ars Electronica Animation Festival🇧🇷 Among the four short films that make up the program, we highlight When the Sea Sends Forth a Forest by Guangli Liu, the main prize winner, the Golden Nica, which addresses the forgotten history of Cambodia’s Chinese community, which was persecuted, expelled and killed by the Khmer Rouge. The session will be preceded by an expanded animation masterclass presented by Jurgen Hagler.

SPA Portuguese competition | Vasco Granja

25 March, Cinema São Jorge | Manoel de Oliveira Room

Portuguese animation has, as always, a prominent place in the program of MONSTER🇧🇷 In addition to the various works selected for international competitions and different retrospectives, 10 films are present in the prestigious SPA | Vasco Granja, selected among 81 competing films. Four of the largest independent national production companies are represented, Animanostra, Animais, Sardinha em Lata and Bando à Parte, with works by directors Bruno Simões, Paulo Patrício, Susana Miguel António, Filipa Gomes da Costa and Laura Gonçalves, the latter author of the documentary The Trash Man that presents itself in MONSTER in world premiere. José Xavier and Pedro Serrazina, directors with a long career in Portuguese animation, present us with two films with a strong connection to music and abstract, experimental or contemplative animation is also present with the works of João Levezinho, Maria Constanza Ferreira, Bruno Carnide and Joao Pedro Oliveira.

Monstrinha Schools and Parents and Children

March 5th, 19th, 20th, 26th and 27th | Cinema São Jorge, Cinema City Alvalade, Cinemateca Júnior, National Museum of Ethnology, Cultural Center of Carnide and Casa das Artes de Sines

In 2021, more than 67,000 children watched the programs GIRLwhich every year includes a program specifically for schools and another aimed at families, where we highlight the sessions Parents and sons with a selection of very recent short films of great artistic quality. Films for the youngest will also be present in the section Historicwhere we will revisit Disney’s anniversary works snow White (85 years old), bambi (80 years old) and The Jungle Book (55 years). The international feature film competition also presents two works for families: mother gorilla by Linda Hambäck, nominated for the European Film Awards, and Even Mice Belong to Heaven by Denisa Grimmová and Jan Bubenicek, who will be present at the MONSTER and which tell us the story of a mouse and a fox who, after a tragic accident, meet in heaven to start an unlikely friendship!

Full schedule here