Cinematic Summer Joys: 17th Curtas Vila do Conde Festival |

Music festivals are globally considered as the epitome of summer coolness, the perfect places where you can have fun, unwind and show off your summer wardrobe.

Yet, for quite a few years now, film festivals have been stealing the scene to rock festivals over the hottest months of the year. Cinema fans can indeed enjoy a wide range of international events between June and August all over the world. The Portugal-based Curtas Vila do Conde festival is one of the most famous for its connection with the world of contemporary art.

This innovative event – divided in different thematic sections and offering a rich programme that also includes exhibitions and installations – has now reached its 17th edition and is dedicated to cinema professionals, creative minds and enthusiastic film fans.

The 2009 edition promises to be particularly interesting and rich. The programme offers the traditional Portuguese and International short film competitions, including around 100 fiction, animation, documentary and experimental films and videos; the ‘Take One!’ section will instead allow film students to showcase their work, while launching at the same time a platform to debate about the main issues connected with contemporary cinema, and, starting from this year, there will also be a new competition entitled ‘Curtinhas’, dedicated to short films for children and young people.

The ‘Remixed’ and ‘Back to the Future’ sections will be particularly interesting. The former is an exploration of sound, music and moving images, and will offer the chance to see the film concert “13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (ex- Galaxie 500, Luna).

The film, released in conjunction with The Andy Warhol Museum, features 13 screen tests – including Nico, Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick and Dennis Hopper’s – shot between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol’s Factory in New York City.

The band Tigrala will instead be involved in a concert, playing live the original soundtrack for Tabu (1931), the seminal film shot in the South Seas by German director F.W. Murnau, co-directed by Robert J. Flaherty and Brazilian singer and songwriter Vinícius Cantuária will be performing in a solo show and also together with Japan’s Takuya Nakamura, combining electronic music with the soundtracks of N.Y., N.Y. (1957) by Francis Thompson and Manhatta (1920) by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler.

‘Back to the Future’ will instead concentrate on space age shorts from the 50s, 60s and 70s, providing the audience with an optimistic and fun vision of a utopian future, and granting fashion and design fans hours of endless joy, thanks to videos and films featuring plenty of futuristic architecture, interior design and costumes.

The compilation “Beyond A Shadow Of The Moon: Achievements and Illusions From the Golden Era Of the Space Age, 1957 -1986” by film archivist Ryan Daly collides together NASA space program videos with trailers of various films, from X-rated soft core porn parody Flesh Gordon to Star Wars, 2001 Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet, while the Finnish film Futuro focuses on the futuristic and controversial space ship-like house designed by architect Matti Suuronen.

Passionate art fans will be able to indulge their passion at the “No Cinema” collective exhibition hosted at Centro de Memória, and while admiring the events connected with the ‘In Progress’ and ‘In Focus’ festival sections.

The former will present at the Solar Cinematic Art Gallery an exhibition by Finnish photographer and filmmaker Salla Tykkä, while the latter will feature a special film session, masterclass and exhibition by French-Lebanese visual artists Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas.

This year’s festival also marks the opening of Teatro Municipal de Vila do Conde, so audiences will finally be able to admire the results of the renovation works on the Cine-Teatro Neiva, a landmark building of Vila do Conde, originally opened in 1949.

So if you're planning to go to Portugal this summer and you're worried about the high temperatures over there, remember that you will find refuge from the hot weather and food for your thoughts at all the venues linked with the Curtas Vila do Conde festival where will you be transported into a world made of music, cinematic landscapes and cutting-edge art installations.

17th Curtas Vila do Conde, Vila do Conde, Portugal, 4th – 12th July 2009