MotelX 2021: David Bruckner's THE NIGHT HOUSE to Close Lisbon Genre Fest

The long anticipated “The Night House” by David Bruckner with Rebecca Hall is the closing movie.

 

7 days, more than 70 films, a special programme for the young ones, conversations and reflections about various aspects of national and international genre cinema. Here’s the complete programme of the 2021 edition of MOTELX, from 7 to 13 September, at Cinema São Jorge, in Lisbon.

 

The countdown has started for the 15th edition of MOTELX - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival. From 7 to 13 September, all the roads lead to Cinema São Jorge, in Lisbon, to celebrate another moment in which horror means communion.

 

With its complete programme, MOTELX underlines its DNA and, with the eyes set on the future, shows the best of what is made in horror cinema and how it can be transfigured when crossing with other artistic expressions.

 

After announcing the opening of the festival, “The Green Knight” by David Lowery, on the 7th, the closing screening will be “The Night House” by David Bruckner. The American director’s film tells the story of a widow who tries to overcome her husband’s suicide, at the lake house they built together. As she seeks to give meaning to her life, she is plagued by disturbing visions and the feeling that there is an even greater mystery to discover.

 

In the Room Service section, to the already revealed titles “Black Medusa” and “Violation”, other films from countries usually foreign to the genre will be featured: “Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It” by Ernar Nurgaliev (Kazakhstan), “Three” by Pak Ruslan (Kazakhstan, South Korea and Uzbekistan) and the eco-horror thriller “Gaia” by Jaco Bouwer (South Africa).

 

This section is boosted by the screening of “The Night” by Iranian director Kourosh Ahari. Entirely spoken in the Persian language, it is the first American-made film to be released in Iran since the 70s. Other featured productions are “Mad God”, Phil Tippett’s animation project of a lifetime, one the most Academy Award-winning visual effects specialists (“Star Wars”, “Robocop”, among others), which premiered at Locarno Film Festival this year; “Willy’s Wonderland” by Kevin Lewis, starring the new hottest star of genre movies, Nicolas Cage; “Fukushima 50” by Setsurô Wakamatsu, about the nuclear disaster at the plant located on the Japanese island Honshu, in 2011; and the experimental cinema of “After Blue” by French director Bertrand Mandico.

 

Joining the slashers announced for the most expected programme “Murderous Fury - Female Serial Killers”, which aims to deconstruct the stereotype of male representation in horror movies, is “Office Killer” (1997) by Cindy Sherman. This is the American artist’s only feature film and tells the story of a woman who starts to murder her male co-workers, keeping the corpses in the basement. It also has the particularity of creating a connection with the images produced by herself and, similarly to the self-portraits that made her world famous, the main character, played by Carol Kane, reminds of Cindy Sherman.

 

Another highlight goes to “In the Earth” by English filmmaker Ben Wheatley, included in the Best European Feature competition, which, in this edition, presents 8 films from 7 countries: Spain, France (with two films), England, Wales, Italy, Sweden and Portugal - with the already announced “Name Above Title” by Carlos Conceição.

 

Completing the news for the 15th edition of the festival is the documentary on Folk Horror, “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror” by Canadian film writer and producer Kier-La Janisse, in the Doc Horror section.

 

Not to be missed are three debates that address some of the themes present in MOTELX’s 2021 edition: “Making Genre - From Conception to Distribution” panel, which brings together the producers Josh C. Waller, Camille Gatin, Elan Gale, Emily Gotto (Shudder/AMC) and Molly Quinn, to discuss the overall process of making genre movies. “Murderous Fury” panel, moderated by the journalist Carolina Franco (Gerador), features actress and film director Ana Moreira, film critic Inês N. Lourenço, professor and researcher Jorge Martins Rosa, and the festival’s director and programmer João Monteiro; and a conversation with the Portuguese producer/director duo Tino Navarro and Joaquim Leitão, authors of the unfinished trilogy about the Overseas that, at MOTELX, will be represented by the feature films “Inferno” (1999) and “20,13 Purgatório” (2006), in the Lost Room section.

 

To get things started for 7 days of frightening scares on the screen, the festival’s Warm-Up happens between September 2 and 4, in partnership with Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, with three unique proposals that mark the city’s cultural rentrée. On the 2nd, at Convento de São Pedro de Alcântara, “RAPSODO” is a show dedicated to the spoken word, to storytellers, to tales, texts and stories related to the universe of horror and fantasy, conducted by the renowned actors Maria João Luís, José Anjos, Miguel Borges and Vítor Alves da Silva, involved by the sonic universe of Noiserv. In turn, on the 3rd, at Travessa de São Paulo, 5 (Cais do Sodré), an unique opportunity to watch the Portuguese filmmaker Edgar Pêra’s first and surprising incursion into the world of painting. In “Viles of the Ego - A Pictorial Staging by Edgar Pêra”, his new canvases will be dramatized by Rui Monteiro’s light design and Artur Cyaneto’s soundtrack. Closing the Warm-Up, on the 4th, the classic and usual open-air screening, at Largo Trindade Coelho, with Don Coscarelli’s horror comedy “Bubba Ho-Tep” (2002). Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley and Ossie Davis as “John F. Kennedy” fight an Egyptian mummy coming to suck the souls out of patients at a nursing home.

 

All activities are free entry - upon prior registration to the email geral@motelx.org - and respect DGS’ recommendations