Filmmaker, screenwriter, actor and musician born in Akron, Ohio, Jim Jarmusch is the supreme and ultimate representative of “American independent films”. The unique quality of his films comes from the elegant and perfect alchemy between what he takes from the “classical” and “modern”, from a past and a present (from cinema, literature, music and culture in general), of America (seen by Jarmusch with the eyes of a foreigner, “a benign, fascinated foreigner” as said by Tom Waits) and of the world.


Following an extremely rich period in terms of training - he studied literature, became part of the alternative culture movement of the 1970’s “downtown” New York (especially in its seminal musical scene) and developed a comprehensive cinematic culture (became passionate about cinema at the Henri Langlois’ Cinémathèque Française, was a student of the Hollywood director Laslo Benedek at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, and was Nicholas Ray’s assistant in Lightning Over Water by Wim Wenders) – Jim Jarmusch built a unique film universe, absorbing and crossing references, methods and genres (road movies, westerns or even vampire films used mainly as hues), imprinting a poetical and musical breeze on his films (and using the golden rule “less is more”).


From the semi-autobiographical Permanent Vacation (1980) and one of the most striking and influential works ever, Stranger Than Paradise (1984, Caméra d’Or winner at Cannes), going from those unforgettable trip-films such as Dead Man (1995) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), to the two 2016 films, Paterson and Gimme Danger (documentary on rock’n’roll proto-punk by Iggy Pop and his Stooges), the time and the rhythm of Jarmusch’s cinema are those of blues and jazz. His films are made of silences and small details, of scattered narratives, of melancholic atmospheres and, above all, of very tender love and humour of characters caught at transitional periods (physical, emotional or mental) in their lives.


The authenticity and independence of Jim Jarmusch’s artistic attitude mark a path of 36 years and remain unscathed. The director will be one of the guests at the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival where he will present his most recent films, Gimme Danger and Paterson.