An edition overlooking the sea.
And in a dive, we crossed the New Year’s Eve and reached 2023, the year in which the seventh edition of IndieJúnior Porto will dock in several spaces in the city of Porto. After six editions full of stories, colours and discoveries, we cross the ocean on the way to a new edition, with surprises and curiosities.
The Sea is the central theme of this 7th edition of a festival to fill the halls of Oporto with children and adults, with the most special of world cinema. Between January 23 and 29, moving to the recently opened Batalha Film Center, we again propose a wide program of films, workshops and other activities for children, youth and families, in a partnership with the FILMar project, operated by the Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema and with the support of the EEAGrants 2020- 2024 programme. In this edition, we invite viewers to navigate in the discovery of ten short films in restored and digitalized copies, made between 1913 and 1956, exploring the region of Porto and its coastal area.
It is a project that began before the festival, creating bridges between the archive and contemporary production, with training sessions for teachers between October and January, in collaboration with the National Plan for the Arts; an educational activity with the participation of students from the 11th grade of the Escola Secundária Inês de Castro, in Vila Nova de Gaia, called EuMAR, which included a visit to the laboratory of the National Archive of Moving Images, where the films that integrate the programme were recovered.
Throughout the festival, the participating students will integrate workshops and special sessions in places such as museums and galleries, where films are put in dialogue with other arts and sciences. On the last day of the festival, we will hold the Film Concert – Tides, with the participation of Ilda Teresa de Castro and Vítor Rua from the music duo Telectu, who will appear here with their recent project The Banksy’s. A high moment of an edition that has everything to be unforgettable.
The journey continues through the Nordic seas, with a Focus: Norway, one of the donor countries of the EEAGrants programme, to show the most interesting contemporary Norwegian cinema.
In the section My First Film, the dj and digital personality Peter Castro, invites us to float through his childhood and the memories of the film Marie Antoinette, which marked him so much. The experience of watching a film will allow babies to record their first memories of the cinema experience in the Baby Cinema programme. They will be allowed to eat at Cinema at the Table, which will take place at our partner Maus Hábitos, one of the many renewed partnerships, and there will also be a Film-Debate, at Casa Comum, about how creative processes can help the bereavement process. The several workshops, designed for several ages, will allow kids to dare to swim in this ocean of emotions that is cinema.
We arrive at this edition with recent films that include about 50 short films among fiction, documentary and animation, chosen, as in previous years, by a team of young programmers between 6 and 18 years old, from four schools in the metropolitan area of Porto: Nossa Senhora de Campanhã School, Cerco do Porto School Grouping, Dr. Costa Matos School, Fontes Pereira de Melo High School and Boa Nova High School. This initiative, to which we gave the name I Program a Film Festival, is organised in partnership with the National Plan for the Arts.
Besides the official jury, we also have something new: a jury that gathers researchers from the University of Porto and high school students who, together, will attribute the University of Porto Impact Award.
There’s more news that won’t fit in this page, and that’s why IndieJunior Porto is waiting for you, for a Warm-up session at Casa Comum, in the rectory of Porto University, on January 14th. It will be the perfect warm-up for seven days of cinema, workshops, talks and many activities for families and schools.
From 23rd to 29th January, the meeting is scheduled at Batalha Film Center, Biblioteca Municipal Almeida Garrett, Casa das Artes, Coliseu Porto Ageas, Maus Hábitos and Reitoria da Universidade do Porto.
Let’s dive in together?