La Monstra returns to Lisbon with an eye on the animation of Eastern Europe

Lisbon, 17 Mar La Monstra, Portugal's leading animated film festival, returns to Lisbon with a programme of more than 400 films from 46 countries and an eye on Eastern European films. The twenty-first edition of the festival, which runs until March 27 in various venues in the capital, has Bulgaria as its guest country and will pay tribute to its classics and contemporaries. To commemorate 75 years since the creation of the animation department of the Bulgarian National Institute of Cinematography, Monstra will be doing a retrospective with 80 films, some by notable figures such as Todor Dinov and Ivan Veselinov. The event will feature a specific section on Eastern Europe, through collaborations with four festivals: Animeka (Slovenia), Animator (Poland), Animafest (Croatia) and Animest (Romania). Among the rest of the programme, which revolves around the axis of analogue and digital animation, stands out “Flee” by Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, which will be at Monstra before arriving at the Portuguese cinemas. “Flee” is an animated docudrama that portrays the life of an Afghan refugee in Denmark and is nominated for three Oscars, in the categories of best international film, best documentary and best animated film. The feature film competition includes, among others, “Ma Famille Afghane” by Czech director Michaela Pavlátová; “La Traversée” by French director Florence Miailhe and “Bob Cuspe” by Brazilian Cesar Cabral, three films distinguished at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival (France), one of the most important. Among the competing shorts are “Bad Seeds” by Canadian Claude Cloutier; “Bestia” by Chilean Hugo Covarrubias; “The Awakening of the Insects” by France's Stéphanie Lansaque and François Leroy; and “Affairs of the Art” by England's Joanna Quinn. Outside the competition there will be a special programme dedicated to Brazilian animation, with films such as “Rio 2096" by Luiz Bolognesi; “O Menino e o Mundo” by Ale Abreu; “History before a story” by Wilson Lazaretti, and “Tito e os Pássaros” by Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar and André Catoto. The festival also has a section dedicated to animated horror and fantasy films (TerrorAnim) and another to erotic (Triple X). La Monstra also organizes several exhibitions, such as “Across the Chamber, My Grandfather's Demons”, which shows behind the scenes of the first Portuguese animated puppet film (stop motion). In this edition there will also be no shortage of “Monstrinha”, the section with family films designed for the youngest. CHIEF pfm/acm