From May 1 to 11, the city of Lisbon will once again become a hub for independent cinema with a new edition of IndieLisboa, one of the most prestigious film festivals in Europe. This year, the International Short Film Competition will feature the participation of two Argentine filmmakers: Lucila Mariani with I Wish I Didn’t Feel All This Noise and Tomás Murphy with The Look of Glass.
The festival, which just unveiled its full lineup under the motto From the First Take to the Final Night, promises a diverse, provocative edition open to aesthetic risk. The International Competition—described by the organizers as a space that “gives voice to the future” and to films exploring “journey, loss, and rediscovery”—will showcase 32 short films from around the world, including these two Argentine works that, through very different cinematic languages, explore intimate experiences marked by anxiety, violence, and the desire for autonomy.
In I Wish I Didn’t Feel All This Noise, Lucila Mariani crafts a sensitive and expressive fiction in which anxiety manifests as literal bursts of light emanating from the body. The protagonist, overwhelmed by the distress of an abortion, experiences a state of vulnerability that the film transforms into a luminous staging, where body and mind engage in a dialogue through visual effects and a carefully designed soundscape.
Meanwhile, Tomás Murphy’s The Look of Glass offers a gritty street portrait of Yoni, a young man who navigates the outskirts of downtown Buenos Aires alongside his mentor in smuggling operations. The film examines blind loyalty as an emotional prison and reflects on male bonds and the burden of legacy in precarious social contexts.
IndieLisboa 2025 will open with Caught by the Tides by Jia Zhang-ke and close with Universal Language by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin. The festival will also feature a retrospective dedicated to Bulgarian filmmaker Binka Jeliaskova and a special focus on the provocative work of Charlie Shackleton. As part of the Silvestre section, Down with the White Roses! by Albertina Carri will also be presented.
