This Tuesday opens the festival that, for fans of the genre, has become synonymous with horror. Among the new features this year is a retrospective of films banned by censorship in Portugal.
MOTELXwhich starts this Tuesday and brings terror to Lisboa until September 16, comes of age with this 18th edition. An age that makes proud Pedro Soutoone of the founders and directors (along with João Monteiro) of this festival dedicated 100% to horror filmswhich over the years has been attracting more and more audiences to cinema São Jorge.
Not only has the audience grown, but also the number of Portuguese films in the different sections: “Over the years, we have received more than 1,000 Portuguese films,” says Souto. “Yes, in the early years, the Portuguese cinema offer was residual, it began to grow very strongly, especially from the third year onwards, when the award for the best Portuguese short film was created,” he adds.
The festival opens with ‘Speak no Evil’ (USA), from James Watkinsremake of the Danish film that came out of the 2022 edition of MOTELX with the highest award, and closes with ‘The Surfe’ (Australia/Ireland), directed by Lorcan Finnegan and with Nicholas Cage in the leading role.
If we weren’t talking about a horror festival, Souto highlights a “pentagram” made up of five films: the German’s chilling thriller Tilman Singer, ‘Cuckoo’, set in an Alpine resort full of dark secrets, with Hunter Schaferactress of the series ‘Euphoria’, the Canadian ‘In a Violent Nature’, of Chris Nash, ‘Oddity’ that arrives from Ireland by the hand of Damian McCarthy and promises many scares, as well as ‘MaXXXine’of You West (USA) and ‘The Substance’a body horror from the French director Coralie Fargeatcon Demi Moore y Margaret Qualley in the main roles. The film won the award for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival of this year.
In addition to the aforementioned ‘Oddity’, five other feature films will enter the main competitive section of the festival, where they will compete for the Meliès d’Argent for the best European horror film. The winner enters the competition for the Meliès d’Orwhich will be delivered in the Sitges festival next month.
‘The Devil’s Bath’ (Austria/Germany), by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, ‘Fréwaka’ (Ireland), by Aislinn Clarke, ‘In the blind spot’ (Germany), by Ayse Polat, ‘Planet B’ (France/Belgium), from Aude Léa Rapincon Adele Exarchopoulos in the lead role, and ‘She loved blossoms’ (Greece/France), from Yannis Veslemescomplete the nominees for the Silver Meliès.
From ‘Room Service’ to ‘Lost Room’… sections for all tastes
But it is in the section room servicededicated to films from the four cardinal points and presented out of competition, where some of the most anticipated films of this year are found. Another highlight of the festival’s direction is the most recent and unexpected film by the American brothers David and Nathan Zellner, ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ (executive produced by Ari Asterdirector of ‘Hereditary’ y ‘Midsummer’), a bizarre and rigorous portrait of the daily life of a family of creatures. They are also released in Portugal ‘Humanist vampire seeks consenting suicide’, by Ariane Louis-Seize (Canada) and Anglo-American co-production ‘Your Monster’, of Caroline Lindy.
In the section Lost Roomdedicated to Portuguese terror, highlights ‘A Culpa’ (1980)a film that marked the film debut of the composer and director António Victorino D’Almeida (whose presence at the screening is guaranteed) and one of the first examples of fiction about the colonial war after April 25. The tour of the country’s genre filmography has another stop in ‘The Misadventures of Dracula Von Barreto in the Lands of Agrarian Reform’ (1977)short film developed by the PCP Film Cell.
Honor the revolution
Since we are talking about the revolutionary period in Portugal, it is impossible to talk about the 2024 edition without mentioning the section ‘For love of the nation‘, dedicated to films banned by censorship in Portugal before the 1974 revolution, with which the festival wanted to honor the 50th anniversary of April 25 and present us a batch of five films made in the 60s and 70s, some with a strong erotic bias, like the Italian ‘The Demon’ (1963), directed by Brunello Rondi.
The program reflects the good health of genre cinema in Portugal and in the world. For Pedro Souto, “the trend is cyclical and we are in a cycle of popularity of the horror cinemalargely thanks to the American box office.”
“But regardless of what Hollywood does, independent cinema produces a good number of genre films every year, and the festivals They also exist to publicize these more difficult-to-access films,” he adds. A role that MOTELX takes on again this year, as it has been doing since 2007.
