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Cherry brandy, fado music and hand-painted tiles make for three perfectly sound reasons to visit Lisbon, Portugal, any time of the year. Two more are its international documentary showcase, Doclisboa (in October) and festival of independent world cinema called Indie Lisboa (in April).
If you're attending either, or both, of these emerging festivals, you'll want a fabulous place to repair to after hectic days of screenings, panels and parties. One solution to consider is the Heritage Hotels of Lisbon, a boutique chain of luxury boutique hotels that arguably rivals cinema in providing period stories and fantasy escape.
Český Krumlov, the Czech Republic's answer to Camelot, is so fairy-tale perfect you half expect mini-chiclets to rain down on its cobbled streets. Marionettes deck the panes of its gingerbread shops. Bears roam a castle moat. And the town's very name describes the bend in the Vltava River that rings this UNESCO World Heritage Site dating back to the 13th century.
It's no wonder Hollywood came here to shoot The Adventures of Pinocchio and opening frames of The Illusionist. All that's missing in the medieval fantasy set is a green ogre. Český Krumlov's mediating role between filmed artifice and real world makes it an ideal junction after summer's cinema rites in another corner of Bohemia, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Yet unlike the spa town of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), this South Bohemia destination lacks thermal waters to drink in or splash about. The closest thing is the indoor pool, sauna and solarium of its five-star Hotel Růže, housed in a 16th-century Jesuit monastery and university.
TRANSlations: Seattle Trans Film Festival showcases films by, for and about our Trans+ community (Trans, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, Intersex and Two-Spirit). Running June 7 - 8 in Seattle, Washington, TRANSlations was launched in 2006 and is one of only nine Trans+ focused film festivals in the world. The festival features virtual and in-person screenings, parties, panels, workshops, and community meet-ups.
TRANSlations has over 70 films and opens with the WE ARE HER program of shorts highlighting notable trans women from the past and present who have acted in the struggle for liberation and cut paths for us to follow today. The closing night special feature is the West Coast Premieres of Sam's World and Vapor Trails. Sam (Lily Lady) is a nonbinary twentysomething sex worker trying to navigate their life over the course of one weekend in New York City. Directed by Willow Skye-Biggs, Vapor Trails is a beautifully shot short film focusing on two displaced women seeking transcendence through connection.
For people who can’t get to Seattle the festival will also be streamed and have on demand features from June 6th to the 9th.
To learn more, go to: https://threedollarbillcinema.org/translations
TRANSlations: Seattle Trans Film Festival
June 6 - 9, 2024 Online
June 7 - 8, 2024 In Person
The Beacon Cinema
4405 Rainier Ave S
Seattle, WA 98118
Ark Lodge Cinemas
4816 Rainier Ave S
Seattle, WA 98118
Since 1979, Colorado’s Mountainfilm film festival has brought assembled a lineup of documentaries from activists and filmmakers and change makers with a message. Running May 23 to the 27th in Telluride, Colorado, Mountainfilm features over 90 films from around the world.
399: Queen of the Tetons follows Grizzly #399, a renowned grizzly bear that inhabits the Grand Teton National Park. see as #399 struggles to raise an unusually large four-cub litter in the face of human encroachment and a rapidly changing climate. While the narrative follows #399’s decisions and the escalating human conflict, 399: Queen of the Tetons raises bigger thematic questions about humans’ relationship with nature, and how we connect, control, consume and conserve it.
Ghost Resorts: Japan is a short film looking at the abandoned ski resorts dotting Japan’s landscapes. Symbols of Japan’s rapid economic growth in the 80s and the bubble bursting in the 90s, hundreds of these abandoned resorts remain, attracting curious visitors.
In Sugarcane an investigation into unmarked graves at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants, including the film’s co-director whose father was born, and nearly buried, at the school. Sugarcane spotlights the lasting traumas inflicted upon Indigenous North Americans from the residential school system, including physical and sexual abuse, the separation of families and the destruction of Native culture and language.
The festival also includes a speaker series focusing on contemporary issues, art and photography exhibits, early morning coffee talks, outdoor programs, a book-signing party, an ice cream social, student programs and a closing picnic/awards ceremony. Presentations and panels are scheduled throughout the Memorial Day weekend event with a wide diversity of special guests, ranging from artists to adventurers and academics to activists.
To learn more, go to: https://www.mountainfilm.org/
Mountainfilm
May 23 - 27, 2024
Various venues in Telluride, Colorado.