Mexican producer, director and curator Paula Astorga has shared her vision for Doclisboa in her first interview since being announced as the new artistic director of the Lisbon-based documentary film festival.
“I have two passions,” Astorga said. “Projects at development stages and exhibition because I love audiences. I think this opportunity at Doclisboa is the perfect place to put these two passions together.”
She takes over from outgoing Doclisboa artistic director Miguel Ribeiro, who has been appointed head of programming at new Lisbon arts centre Casa Do Comun. Her appointment was made by Aprodoc, the association for documentary which oversees the festival.
Astorga is currently head of studies at the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors Producer’s Lab programme. She has confirmed that she will stay in this position for one further year as Open Doors continues to focus on underrepresented countries in Latin America and the Caribbean during its 2024 edition.
After 2024, Locarno will focus on a new territory and she is expected to step down from Open Doors at that point. “Once it is done, I will be fully devoted to Doclisboa,” she commented.
Astorga is also the executive and founding director of the Ficunam seminar The Audience of the Future in Mexico - and will remain involved with this event.
She revealed that she was invited to apply for the job at Doclisboa by Cintia Gil, associate programmer at the festival and one of its former directors, when Gil was attending Ficunam.
Astorga will be moving to live in Portugal in February.
Rich programme
“I think Doclisboa is a festival where exchanges [between filmmakers and audiences] happen on a conceptual, philosophical and aesthetic [level]. There is a richness to the programme which I find really interesting,” Astorga reflected.
“I felt it was an opportunity and a great next step for the things I have been working on,” Astorga said. She also spoke of the natural bridge” between Doclisboa and Latin America and said she also hopes to build further the relationships between the festival and potential African collaborators.
Astorga said that “one of the most seductive” aspects of her new position at Doclisboa is the programming opportunities it presents.
“I think Doclisboa is political, it’s intelligent, it’s diverse and it has critical thinking. It is a festival which has already consolidated a very strong identity,” she said. “I think I am able to enhance and re-think how audiences and young people can take Doclisboa as a space that really adds value to their audiovisual culture.”
Astorga is at Doclisboa on an initial “three-year invitation.” This will be evaluated annually. She has been participating at this year’s festival as one of the five jurors [alongside André Guiomar, Julien Rejl, Lina González and Narimane Mari] for Doclisboa’s Arché industry awards for projects in writing, development and at first cut stage.
She confirmed that she will not be producing while at the helm of Doclisboa.
“I feel really enthusiastic about the new generation of producers coming up. Young producers are really in another era. They have fantastic ideas, fantastic tools and more and more pragmatic ways of seeing things. Doclisboa is fantastic place to push them, stimulate them - and not to compete with them. They don’t need people like me anymore. They need to be themselves. That is a responsibility for me, to provide a platform for them to grow.”
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