FIMFA Lx14 starts today in Lisbon, Portugal, with a program full of must-see companies (click here). This festival, organized by A Tarumba, is an auhentic showcase of contemporary trends in scenic arts. In fact, Rute Ribeiro and Luis Vieira, artistic directors, define FIMFA as a festival of ‘animated forms’. The variety of formats and the mix of disciplines witness the force of the modern puppetry and the rule it can play in big cities cultural life.
Today, the animation of Surreal McCoy in the most centric streets of Lisbon will present the 2014 edition to everyone before opening officially with the performance ‘Lähtö / Départ’ by WHS, at São Luiz Teatro Municipal. This Finnish company mixes circus, visual arts, cinema and “nouvelle magie” to create plays of highly poetic expression. In ‘Lähtö /Départ’, a woman and a man have to manage a relationship with many angles of vision and in which each character has doubles. It’s a strong beginning, both for the use of different techniques and the setting of the drama. After them, an exquisite short performance by the local artist Luis Hipólito will close this first day of a series of unique shows.
FIMFA will close next 25 May after presenting 15 different shows from Portugal and the international scene. In the first weekend, after WHS, it’ll be the turn of Puppentheater Halle, with ‘Buddenbrooks’ (Germany), and Teatro de Ferro (Portugal), with ‘Uma aventura no espaço’. Besides, on Sunday, the film ‘An Attic Full of Puppets’, by Richard Butchins, will be projected, following with a conversation with the director.
The festival then will continue at the Museu da Marioneta during the weekdays with ‘Phantom Story’, by Nicola Unger (Holland) before presenting companies as the Centre Dramatique National d’Alsace Strasbourg (France), Teatro de Marionetas de Porto (Portugal) and the mechanical creatures of Amit Drori (Israel) and, at the last part of this edition, the Portuguese companies of Etienne Lamaison and Sylvain Pecker, Miguel Fragata and Inês Barahona and A Tarumba themselves.
Amit Drori.
The realization of this edition of FIMFA Lx has been one of the most difficult to reach in the 14 years of history of the festival. With a lower budget than in previous editions, A Tarumba got to resize the program and set it without losing a bit of its quality or impact in the city.
The 14th edition has the support of the Government of Portugal / State Secretary of Culture – Directorate General of Arts and involves, again, a number of key partnerships for its implementation, with some of the most important cultural agents of the city, highlighting EGEAC and co -productions with Teatro São Luiz, Teatro Maria Matos, the Museu da Marioneta, the National Theatre D. Maria II, the Centro Cultural de Belém – Factories of the Arts, in addition of support and partnerships with the City of Lisbon, the Southern Theater, among others. Furthermore, this year FIMFA has a new partnership with one more venue, the Teatro Taborda.
