“Existing, Resisting, Giving Up…”

This trilogy serves as the motto for this edition. ‘These three intertwined ideas end up running through the entire programme, which is crossed by the idea of resistance, on the one hand, and very different ways of existing, and not just to do with the geographical origin of the proposals, but also the different generations of artists, and a little about the way the shows talk about different ways of existing,’ says Igor Gandra.

With regard to the idea of ‘Existing’, the artistic director says that the programme is ‘very plural’, in that it shows ‘many possibilities of existence and coexistence’, pointing to the show In Many Hands, by Kate McIntosh, a New Zealand artist based in Belgium, as an example. It is ‘a participatory performance that proposes other ways of existing collectively on the pretext of living with objects’.

This also includes the show Dura Dita Dura, ‘a kind of contemporary classic from Teatro de Ferro, which is now 15 years old. ‘It's a very important piece in my career as an artist and in the career of this theatre,’ says Igor Gandra, the director and performer. The revival of this animated form show for all ages takes place on the pretext of the 50th anniversary of 25 April.

‘The idea of ‘giving up’ ends up being very present and it's about the ability to leave certain things behind, to realise that certain paths have to be rethought,’ he says. This is what English comedian and artist Kim Noble shows us in Lullaby for Scavengers, a national premiere. This play, presented in partnership with the Teatro Municipal do Porto, ‘is capable of evoking the most diverse feelings in those who watch it. From humour to compassion, passing through physical or moral repulsion, in this performance we are led in a disconcerting way along paths that cross zones in which fiction and reality mix,’ reads the synopsis.

As highlights of this year's programme, Igor Gandra points to ‘the shows on the edge of the dates’ of the festival: Geologia de uma Fábula (11 and 12 October at the Carlos Alberto Theatre - CANCELLED canceled due to bombing in Lebanon) and In Many Hands (19 and 20 October at the Campo Alegre Theatre).

This isn't the first time that the performance Geologia de uma Fábula, by Collectif Kahraba from Lebanon, has been presented in Portugal, but Gandra ‘really wanted to programme it because it's a rare manifestation of generosity on stage’. ‘It's very beautiful, very poetic, very wide-ranging. For us, it's interesting to start the festival with a piece that can be seen by big and small alike; it's a piece that has a kind of almost universal feel to it.’ In this performance, Aurélien Zouki and Éric Deniaud manipulate clay live and ‘build images that take us back to our own rurality, to a heritage shared with the rest of the Mediterranean. They have this thing of allowing themselves a certain innocence, and that's interesting in this day and age,’ emphasises fimp's artistic director.

“The fimp audience knows what they're in for”

Erom three and a half decades of existence, with programming ‘mostly for adults’, the festival has sought to provoke and surprise its audience at every edition: ‘We have a large group of people who know what they're in for, who are aware that they're going to be surprised in some way, because we ourselves also take pleasure in that surprise when we programme, in discovering new things and coming across artistic objects that also provoke us, that make us think differently, that make us learn something or change our worldview,’ says the artistic director.

Although fimp has a consolidated audience, the ‘awareness that it's important to broaden the spectrum of people who come to the festival’ remains. It was precisely with this in mind that Teatro de Ferro established a partnership with Metro do Porto and, since 17 September, has been showing a film ‘starring objects that don't like to sit still’ on the screens in the metro stations, the result of an artistic residency. The Trindade station will also host shows by the Dom Roberto Theatre with puppeteer Rui Sousa (on 12 and 20 October).