Tow on its 22nd year, and firmly established as one of the Iberian peninsula most diverse and fast-growing film festival, IndieLisboa takes place between May 1st and 11th across various venues in the Portuguese capital. The event includes three competitive strands – international feature films (with 10 movies), international short films, and national (Portuguese) films. In addition, a number of further strands cater to diverse tastes: Novissimos (“super young”, in free translation), Silvestre (“wild vegetation”, IndieMusic, Smart7, a retrospective of Bulgarian director Binka Jeliaskova, and even films in a pool (for film-lovers seeking a little refreshment, as temperatures in Lisbon often exceed 30 degrees in May).

DMovies will c0ver the event on site exclusively for you. And we can anticipate some of the tasty entries (entrees, maybe?). Rungano Nynoni’s hypnotic On Being a Guinea Fowl (2024) is in the main competition, as is Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney (also from 2024, and our writer Eoghan Lyng’s top dirty movies of the year; pictured below). Jia Zhang-ke’s widely-acclaimed Caught by the Tides (2024), is the Festival’s closing film.

You can check out the full programme by clicking here.

And you can follow our full coverage of the event by clicking here.

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Myriad inroads for filmmakers

We spoke to Festival Director Susana Santos Rodrigues in order to understand what is it that makes IndieLisboa so special, how film professionals should approach it, why film-lovers professionals should attend, and what they should expect. She clarifies: “IndieLisboa presents in its International Competition section, both features as well as shorts, carefully curated each year. The selection is the result of an approach that combines open call submissions, active festival attendance, and targeted scouting by our programming team”.

She goes further: “we do maintain an open call, via filmfreeway, which is a key component of our process. We encourage filmmakers from all backgrounds and geographies with films of different styles and genres to submit their work for consideration. Every film received is viewed and assessed with the same care and attention, and we strongly believe that an open submission process can be essential for discovering new voices and perspectives. At the end of the day, there is a large percentage of our final programme that comes from this source, mostly in the shorts.

In parallel, our team is constantly attending international festivals and engaging in year-round scouting or even other work or academic collaborations that raise our awareness towards certain films in a different ways. This allows us to stay connected to emerging trends, new talents, and cinematic movements worldwide.

She has a simple message to aspiring international filmmakers: “don’t hesitate to submit. IndieLisboa is deeply committed to discovering and supporting new cinematic voices. If your work is authentic, challenging, and speaks in a unique cinematic language – we want to see it”.

The submission and audience numbers reveal a the picture of a very mature event. Susana shares some useful facts and figure: “this year, our submission total is roughly, 5310 films: 1198 Feature Films; 3583 Short Films; 53 Feature Films qualifying for the national competition; 301 Short national Films and 175 short/feature qualifying for our national sections. Total no of selected films in 2025: 237 films. Admissions post-pandemic revolves around 30.000 audience members”.

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Nude bathers and a naughty cap

Finally, we asked Susana to share some peculiar anecdotes. A naughty shower cap and potentially nude film bathers could add a entire new dimension to the event. She clarifies: “we’ve created different sidebar sections such as cinema in the pool, mouth of madness marathon, indiedate, indiebynight with concerts or performances for the after-hours of the film screenings. We’ve had to expel someone from the cinema in the pool who came with a shower cap [laughs] to the swimming pool and there the rules are very strict.

And there’s more: “for the Mouth of Madness marathon, the culmination of a section MoM devoted to cult, funny, horror or simply bizarre) this year we’ve came up with the idea (freely inspired by the inclusion of Café Flesh, a porn sci-fi from the ’80s from our Director’s Cut section devoted to restorations) of the raincoat ticket discount (makes sense in Lisbon, perhaps not in London 😉 and are now wondering if anyone will be popping up naked underneath [laughs[] or, considering the unpredictability of the current weather if this was actually a good idea”.

Don’t forget to check out the full programme by clicking here. Plus, follow our full coverage of the event by clicking here.

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The picture at the tip of this article was snapped by Raquel Montez.