The organization of the festival, which is in its 14th edition this year, announced today that the initiative will return to Cinema São Jorge between September 7 and 14, after three days of ‘warm-up’ events outdoors.
This year’s edition challenges an atypical 2020 with a retrospective on racism and horror cinema, films by Pedro Costa, a record number of films made by women and many proposals for eight days of collective catharsis.
The retrospective ‘American Nightmare: Racism and Horror Cinema’ includes seven films, precursors of the Black Lives Matter movement, whose critical eye proposes a reckoning with history: ‘The Intruder‘, by Roger Corman (1962), ‘Ganja & Hess‘, by Bill Gunn (1973), ‘White Dog‘, by Samuel Fuller (1982), ‘The People Under the Stairs’, by Wes Craven (1991), ‘Candyman‘, by Bernard Rose (1992), ‘Tales from the Hood‘, by Rusty Cundieff (1995), and ‘Run‘, by Jordan Peele (2017).
This year, MOTELX presents, for the first time, an Experimental Short Program, dedicated to alternative narratives that use revolutionary techniques to create new languages and transcendental nightmares.
At the end of the festival, the MOTELX – Best Portuguese Horror Short Film, in the amount of five thousand euros will be awarded, whose finalists will be announced in August, and Best European Horror Feature/Méliès d’argent, whose finalists will also be announced in the month. next.
The festival’s warm-up sessions, in partnership with Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, will take place on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of September.
On the 3rd, the Convent of São Pedro de Alcântra hosts the performance/concert “A Mulher-Sem-Cabeça”, based on a text by the writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, with live illustrations by António Jorge Gonçalves and the voice of the ‘rapper ‘Papillon.
On the 4th, Espaço Brotéria hosts a staged dinner, based on the text “A Very Original Dinner”, by Fernando Pessoa while Alexander Search, a project that recreates the darker side of Pessoa, and which has artistic supervision by Albano Jerónimo and the staging debut of two theater and cinema students, Matilde Carvalho and Rita Poças.
For September 5, an open-air cinema session is scheduled at Largo Trindade Coelho, with a film to be announced soon.
The complete schedule for the 14th MOTELX will be announced in August.
