MotelX 2024: SASQUATCH SUNSET, IN A VIOLENT NATURE And ODDITY Lead First Wave

18th EDITION

10 - 16 SEP 2024

Lisbon - Cinema São Jorge

 

The much-anticipated “Sasquatch Sunset”, “In a Violent Nature” and “Oddity”, the latest film by Edgar Pêra on Fernando Pessoa and H. P. Lovecraft created with AI, the first cinematographic work by maestro António Victorino D’Almeida, the cycle of horror films prohibited by the dictatorship in Portugal and the large number of Portuguese short films in competition fill out some of the highlights of the 18th MOTELX.

 

Last week, in Screening Room 3 of Cinema São Jorge, it was presented a wide range of new features of the 18th edition of MOTELX - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival.

 

From 10 to 16 September, the house of cinema in the heart of Lisbon will once again be the official address of the great horror celebration and the place where the main contemporary titles of genre cinema will be highlighted, with passages through its roots and coordinates for the future. Seven days of fierce exclusive premieres, revisits of classics, special guests, talks and networking, in a mind-blowing programme that keeps MOTELX at the forefront of the world film festivals.

 

Among the new confirmations, one of the biggest highlights is the latest and most unexpected film by American brothers David and Nathan Zellner, “Sasquatch Sunset” (executive produced by Ari Aster), a bizarre and rigorous portrait of the daily life of a Bigfoot family. Also premiering in Portugal are the creepy thriller by German director Tilman Singer, “Cuckoo”, which is set in an Alpine resort full of dark secrets, starring Hunter Schafer (“Euphoria”); the Canadians “In a Violent Nature”, by Chris Nash, and “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person”, by Ariane Louis-Seize; and the US-UK co-production, “Your Monster”, by Caroline Lindy.

 

From Europe, the Irish “Oddity”, a paranormal nightmare by Damian Mc Carthy - one of the revelations of the last SXSW -, and the French “Plastic Guns”, by Jean-Christophe Meurisse, director of “Bloody Oranges”, complete the novelties of the Room Service section and join the previously announced “The Devil's Bath” (Austria, Germany), by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, “Exhuma” (South Korea), by Jang Jae-hyun, and “Sayara” (Turkey), by Can Evrenol, a guest at the Festival.

 

In 2024, we enter the Lost Room again to discover more films and filmmakers that define Portuguese horror. “The Fault” (1980) is the cinema debut of the composer and maestro António Victorino D’Almeida (who is guaranteed to attend the screening) and one of the first examples of fiction about the colonial war after the 25 of April, 1974, Revolution in Portugal. The journey through the country’s genre filmography has another stop in “As Desventuras de Drácula Von Barreto nas Terras da Reforma Agrária” (1977), a short film developed by the Portuguese Communist Party’s Cinema Cell.

 

The 18th MOTELX also opens a new section highlighting nondescript cinema works. The Sala de Culto rescues the TV film “Experiência em Terror (Experiment in Horror)” (Portugal, 1987), by António de Andrade Albuquerque, created entirely with amateurs and based on a short story by Dick Haskins (the director's literary pseudonym), and presents the independent buddy movie “The Old Man and the Sword” (Portugal, 2024), by Fábio Powers, an ode to B-movies, shot in Beira Baixa region (in the interior of Portugal) and ready to become legendary.

 

Also a sign of the excellent form of Portuguese horror is the number of films in competition. As a result of the growing logic and vitality of genre production in Portugal and Europe, of which MOTELX is one of the greatest catalysts, eight national titles are competing for the Méliès d'argent Award - Best European Short Film 2024: “Before the Moonrise”, by Mário Patrocínio; “The Chameleon”, by Tiago “Ramon” Santos; “The Green Language”, by Guilherme Daniel; “Sterile”, by João Pais da Silva; “The Hunt”, by Diogo Costa; “Nuclear”, by David Falcão; “How Much Does a Body Weigh?”, by Gabriel Garcia Nery; and “Unicorn Hunting”, by Miguel Afonso.

 

As for those lined-up for the MOTELX Award - Best Portuguese Horror Short Film 2024 - the biggest prize money for short films in the country and the Festival’s most important competition -, these solidify the dynamism of Portuguese genre cinema, with ten films: “After Link”, by Catarina De Cèzanne; “Spotlight”, by Camilla Ciardi; “Less Than Three”, by Dan Martin, Sofia Pessoa Pádua, Mariana Cabecinha and Cláudio Monteiro; “The Night Hunter”, by Paulo Leite; “Stop Looking at Me”, by Carolina Aguiar; “Penrose”, by Alessandra Roucos and Maria Teresa Teixeira; “The Procedure”, by Chico Noras; “Putto”, by Carlos Calika; “Sanctimonious”, by João Pedro Frazão; and “Umbral”, by Miguel Andrade.

 

Still in the competition field, MOTELX renews the partnership founded last year with GUIÕES - Portuguese Language Screenplay Festival, which is celebrating its 10th edition, to elect the best of the five horror scripts selected for feature films not yet produced, the MOTELX GUIÕES Award - Best Portuguese Screenplay 2024.

 

“Il Demonio”, by Brunello Rondi (Italy, France, 1963), “The Plague of the Zombies”, by John Gilling (United Kingdom, 1966), “10 Rillington Place”, by Richard Fleischer (United Kingdom, 1971), and “Valerie and Her Week of Wonders”, by Jaromil Jires (Czechoslovakia, 1970), are the films banned in Portugal included in the cycle “For the Sake of the Nation: Horror Films Prohibited by the Portuguese Dictatorship”, as part of the 50th anniversary of the 25 of April Revolution in Portugal celebrations. Besides these four choices, there’s a Surprise Screening taking place in the Rank Room of Cinema São Jorge, where, legend has it, the censors used to watch and classify films.

 

Another theme in the programme is the phenomenon of Artificial Intelligence, through the first screening in Portugal, after the world premiere in Locarno, of Edgar Pêra’s documentary-essay “Telepathic Letters” - an AI exercise translated into art, establishing links between Fernando Pessoa and H. P. Lovecraft - and the result of MOTELX's challenge to filmmakers to try to use this contemporary technology in an artistic way, in the AI Horror Short Films Showcase.

 

Meanwhile, the Festival's SectionX, a large engine of avant-garde genre cinema, holds the experimental medium-length films “Mamántula” (Germany, Spain), by Ion De Sosa, and “Anapidae (Call Me)” (France), by Mathieu Morel.

 

Who also answered the call was the Big Bad Wolf. This year, the less scary section of the Festival, dedicated to younger audiences and families, explores sensory horror and features the post-apocalyptic animated fable “Flow”, by Latvian Gints Zilbalodis, and the usual Short Scares session.

 

Not to be missed at MOTELX Lab is the presentation of the feminist encyclopaedia “I Spit On Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies”, by Heidi Honeycutt, with a panel moderated by MUTIM - Association of Women Workers of the Moving Image, which includes the author and also the Welsh director Prano Bailey-Bond. Associated with the meeting is the screening of “Censor” (United Kingdom, 2021), Bailey-Bond's psychological horror about a British censor during the heyday of video nasty.

 

In addition to the vast array of novelties, there’s also the collaboration with Liquid Sky Artistcollective. Scheduled for 6 and 7 September and as part of the Festival's Warm-Up, MOTELX AV Lab co-hosted by Liquid Sky Artistcollective occupies the Beato Innovation District with a challenging programme of fusion between electronic music and horror cinema, which aims to bring together musicians, directors, sound designers and VJ artists in DIY synthesiser workshops, jam sessions, performances and underground film screenings, and for which tickets are already on available at Blueticket.

 

Regarding partnerships, the Festival renews the support of sponsors ADLC, BNP Paribas, Seaside, TVCine, Cerveja Coruja and FilmTwist.

 

The 18th edition of MOTELX is on its way and it’s going to contaminate Cinema São Jorge, in Lisbon, between 10 and 16 September!