Portuguese Film Resources
Directory of Spanish and Portuguese Film-Makers and Films by ISBN: 9780313294594Date: 1994-11-29This new book catalogues some 215 prominent film directors from both countries, giving accurate bio-filmographies and providing an in-depth reference source. Full attention is given to the propaganda cinema under dictators Franco and Salazar, to film-makers who left to work abroad--especially in Latin America--and to those filming in the regional languages (mainly Basque and Catalan). There is coverage not only of internationally well-known figures Almodovar, Bunuel, Oliveira, and Saura, but also across the complete range of feature, documentary, and animation film-making: early pioneers Segundo de Chomon, Catalans Jose Maria Codina, Fructuoso Gelabert, and Magi Muria, and Portuguese Aurelio da Paz dos Reis; experimentalists and avant-garde figures such as Lorenzo Llobet-Gracia, Jose Val del Omar, and Nemesio Sobrevila and documentarist Antonio Campos; animators Cruz Delgado, Francisco Macian, and Arturo Moreno (who worked on the first full-length animated film in Europe, Garbancito de la Mancha, in 1945). Each entry gives information on the film-maker's career (date and place of birth, educational qualifications, work experience, positions held), together with a list of films made, with dates of production. There are three indexes: Country Index, Film Title Index, and General Index. The index of film titles lists over 3,000 entries, including the original languages and their English language and aka equivalents.
Portuguese Cinema (1960-2010) by ISBN: 9781787448032Date: 2021-05-21This book traces the evolution of Portuguese cinema between the beginning of the New Cinema movement in 1960 and the height of the economic crisis in 2010 from a socio-cultural and economic perspective. It aims to explain why this vibrant and creative industry has not been more commercially successful and pays especial attention to questions of financial viability, domestic consumption, international distribution, and the effects of legislation. It shows how film-makers have responded to historical difficulties and material obstacles and how market conditions have influenced aesthetics. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, film theory, and history, the book assesses the place of Portuguese cinema within Portuguese culture as well as the wider film world. While focussed on the case of Portugal, it also sheds light on problems faced by other peripheral film cultures in the international marketplace and on the festival circuit.
Portugal's Global Cinema by ISBN: 9781784531980Date: 2017-11-13Portuguese cinema has become increasingly prominent on the international film festival circuit, proving the country's size belies its cultural impact. From the prestige of directors Manoel de Oliveira, Pedro Costa and Miguel Gomes, to box-office hit La Cage Doree, aspects of Portuguese national cinema are widely visible although the output is comparatively small compared to European players like the UK, Germany and France. Considering this strange discrepancy prompts the question: how can Portuguese cinema be characterised and thought about in a global context?Accumulating expertise from an international group of scholars, this book investigates the shifting significance of the nation, Europe and the globe for the way in which Portuguese film is managed on the international stage. Chapters argue that film industry professionals and artisans must navigate complex globalised systems that inform their filmmaking decisions. Expectations from multi-cultural audiences, as well as demands from business investors and the criteria for critical accolades put pressure on Portuguese cinema to negotiate, for example, how far to retain national identities on screen and how to interact with `popular' and `art' film tropes and labels. Exploring themes typical of Portuguese visual culture - including social exclusion and unemployment, issues of realism and authenticity, and addressing Portugal's postcolonial status - this book is a valuable study of interest to the ever-growing number of scholars looking outside the usual canons of European cinema, and those researching the ongoing implications of national cinema's global networks.
The Cinema of Spain and Portugal by ISBN: 9781904764458Date: 2005-06-08An overview of Spanish and Portuguese cinema, this volume contains 24 essays, each on a separate seminal film from the region. Films from the early era of cinema up to the present day are featured, from directors such as Florián Rey, Juan Antonio Bardem, Luis Bunuel, Víctor Erice, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Pedro Almodóvar and João Cesar Monteiro. As well as discussions of genre and influences, The Cinema of Spain & Portugal includes in depth studies of films such as La Aldita Maldita (1930, 1947), Death of a Cyclist (1955), Viridiana (1961), Spirit of the Beehive (1973), Abraham's Valley (1993), Tierra (1995), All About My Mother (1999), and Torrente (1998).
Portuguese Film, 1930-1960 by ISBN: 9781623568634Date: 2013-10-10Portuguese Film, 1930-1960: The Staging of the New State Regime provides groundbreaking analysis of Portuguese feature films produced in the first three decades of the New State (Estado Novo), a right-wing totalitarian regime that lasted between 1933 and 1974. These films, sponsored by the National Propaganda Institute (Secretariado Nacional de Propaganda), convey a conservative image of both mainland Portugal and the country's overseas African colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and St. Thomas and Principe). The films about the mainland emphasize traditional values, the importance of obedience to authorities and a strict division of gender roles, whereby women are relegated to the domestic sphere. The Portuguese countryside, where age-old customs and a strong social hierarchy prevailed, is presented in these movies as a model for the rest of the country. The films about the colonies, in turn, underline the benefits of the Portuguese presence in Africa and portray the colonized as docile subjects to Portuguese rule. The book includes chapter summaries in the introduction, in-depth analyses of the most important Portuguese films produced between 1930 and 1960, a discussion of the main topics of Portuguese cinema from the New State, and a comprehensive bibliography that guides students who wish to read further on a specific topic. First published in Portuguese to wide acclaim, Portuguese Film, 1930-1960: The Staging of the New State Regime fills a gap in English-language scholarship on the history of the national cinema of the Iberian peninsula. Films covered include Fatima, Land of Faith (Terra de Fe), Spell of the Empire (Feitico do Imperio), and Chaimite.
Fado and the Urban Poor in Portuguese Cinema of the 1930s And 1940s by ISBN: 9781855662995Date: 2016-05-19Colvin studies the evolution of Fado music as the soundtrack to the Portuguese talkie. He analyzes the most successful Portuguese films of the first two decades of the Estado Novo era, showing how directors used the national songto promote the values of the young Regime regarding the poor inhabitants of Lisbon's popular neighborhoods. He considers the aesthetic, technological, and social advances that accompany the progress of the Estado Novo---Futurism;the development of sound film; the inception of national radio broadcast; access to the automobile; and urban renewal---within a historical context that considers Portugal's global profile at the time of António de Oliveira Salazar's rise to power and the inauguration of António Ferro's Secretariado da Propaganda Nacional; Portugal's role as a secret ally of the Falange during the Spanish Civil War; Lisbon's role as a neutral refuge during World War II; and the Portuguese colonial empire as an anachronism in the post-World War II years.Colvin argues that Portuguese directors have exploited the growing popularity of the Fado and Lisbon's fadistas to dissuade citizens from alien values that promote individual ambitions and the notion of an easy life of poverty in the capital. As the public image of the Fado evolves, the fadista's role in film becomes more prominent and eventually the fadista is the protagonist and the Fado the principal concern of national film. The author exposes the irony that as the social profile of the Lisbon fadista improves with the international fame of singer Amália Rodrigues, Portuguese film perpetuates and validates the outdated characterization of the fadista as a social pariah that Leitão de Barros proposed in the first Portuguese talkie, A Severa (1931).Michael Colvin is Associate Professor of HispanicStudies at Marymount Manhattan College.
(Re)imagining African Independence: film, visual arts and the fall of the Portuguese Empire by ISBN: 9781787073180Date: 2017-05-31The fortieth anniversary of the independence of the African countries colonized by Portugal presents a valuable opportunity to reassess how colonialism has been «imagined» through the medium of the moving image. The essays collected in this volume investigate Portuguese colonialism and its filmic and audio-visual imaginaries both during and after the Estado Novo regime, examining political propaganda films shot during the liberation wars and exploring the questions and debates these generate. The book also highlights common aspects in the emergence of a national cinema in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. By reanimating (and decolonizing) the archive, it represents an important contribution to Portuguese colonial history, as well as to the history of cinema and the visual arts.
Women in Iberian Filmic Culture by ISBN: 9781789381528Date: 2020-06-20Though cinema arrived in Spain and Portugal at the end of the nineteenth century, national and industrial problems as well as the dictatorships of Salazar and Caetano (in Portugal) and Franco (in Spain) meant Iberian cinemas were isolated from European cultural trends. The strict censorship in both countries limited the themes and artistic practices adopted. A specific cinematographic language, in many cases full of metaphors and symbolism, sought alternatives to the imposed official discourse and preconceived definitions of supposed national identities. By contrast, from the 1970s onwards, Spain and Portugal experienced a great change in their societies: the arrival of democracy widened not just the panorama of film production and criticism, but also opened the film industry to women participation in areas historically assigned to men. Focusing on Portuguese and Spanish cinema, this collection brings together research about women and their status in relation to Iberian visual culture. The volume contributes to ongoing debates about the position of women in the cinemas of Portugal and Spain through a revision of feminist theory as well as new accounts of film history. It also aims to promote comparisons between Iberian cinemas and visual culture from different regions, a topic that is almost unexplored in academia, despite the similar histories of the two Iberian countries, particularly throughout the twentieth century.
Women's Cinema in Contemporary Portugal by ISBN: 9781501349720Date: 2020-03-05Women's Cinema in Contemporary Portugal brings together scholars from Portugal, UK and the USA, to discuss 14 women film directors in Portugal, focussing on their production in both feature film and documentary genres over the last half-century. It charts the specific cinematic visions that these women have brought to the re-emergence of Portuguese national cinema in the wake of the 1974 Revolution and African decolonisation, and to the growing internationalisation of Portugal's arguably 'minor' or 'small nation' cinema, with significant young women directors such as Leonor Teles achieving prominence abroad. The history of Portuguese women's cinema only begins systematically after the 1974 revolution and democratisation. This collection shows how female auteurs made their mark on Portugal's post-revolutionary conceptualisation of a differently 'national' cinema, through the ethnographic output of the late 1970s. It goes on to explore women's decisively gendered interventions in the cinematic memory practices that opened up around the masculine domain of the Colonial Wars in Africa. Feminist political issues such as Portugal's 30-year abortion campaign and LGBT status have become more visible since the 1990s, alongside preoccupations with global concerns relating to immigration, transit and minority status communities. The book also demonstrates how women have contributed to the evolution of soundscapes, the genre of essay cinema, film's relationship to the archive, and the adaptation of the written word. The result is a powerful, provocative and definitive challenge to the marginalisation of Portuguese female-directed film in terms of 'double minority'.
"Gender Struggles in the Portuguese Film Industry" from Women in the International Film Industry by ISBN: 9783030390693Date: 2020-08-09In this chapter, the author assesses the current film industry landscape in Portugal focusing on gender equality politics, woman movements inside the industry, and the impacts of the economic crisis (from 2008 to the present) on gender issues related to the film industry.- O cinema brasileiro em Portugal, 1960-1999 : uma análise crítica de filmes brasileiros na imprensa lisboeta byISBN: 9788523213336Date: 2015
ReFocus: the Films of Pedro Costa by ISBN: 9781474444538Date: 2020-02-28This is the first English-language study of internationally acclaimed Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, examining the cultural, production and exhibition contexts of his feature films, shorts and video installations. It situates Costa's filmmaking within the contexts of Portuguese, European and global art film, looking into his working practices alongside the impact of digital video, forms of collaborative authorship, and the intricate dialogue between modes of production and aesthetics. Considering the exhibition, circulation and reception of Costa's creative output in settings such as film festivals, the art gallery circuit and the home video market, ReFocus: The Films of Pedro Costa provides an essential critical analysis of this major filmmaker - as well as of the multifaceted production and consumption practices that surround contemporary art cinema.
On Manoel de Oliveira by ISBN: 9781905674800Date: 2009-05-14On December 8, 2008, the Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira will celebrate his 100th birthday. This special issue of Dekalog pays homage not only to the world's oldest living filmmaker but also to an outstanding artist who has both captivated and bewildered audiences throughout his career. The first British publication on the filmmaker, this issue of Dekalog will enhance the study of Oliveira's work in the West. It unites researchers from Brazil, Germany, Portugal, and the United States who have devoted much of their scholarship to an analysis of the filmmaker's work.- O cinema épico de Manoel de Oliveira byISBN: 8527311291Date: 2018Teatro. Política. Arte. Cinema. O épico brechtiano do cineasta português, suas múltiplas referências, seus múltiplos sentidos. O Cinema Épico de Manoel de Oliveira é claro em suas pretensões: comprovar que os filmes do cineasta português só podem ser plenamente compreendidos se levarmos em conta a influência básica do teatro épico moderno teorizado por Bertolt Brecht, com quem a trajetória de Oliveira tinha pontos em comum, inclusive a admiração que tanto o cineasta quanto o dramaturgo nutriam pelos mestres do cinema soviético, Vertov e Eisenstein e sua a rejeição aos padrões estabelecidos. Desses embates floresce a produção fílmica do diretor português, profunda, intensa, poética.
- Uma dramaturgia da violência: os filmes de João Canijo byDate: 2019Ribas proposes the notion of dramaturgy of violence in João Canijo's films, resulting from the intertextual dialogue that crosses Greek tragedy and American melodrama and concretized in the representation of a contemporary Portuguese imaginary, analyzed from the concepts of non-inscription (José Gil) and the repressed (Eduardo Lourenço).
- The Green Years (dir. Paulo Rocha, 1963)
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- Francisca (dir. Manoel de Oliveira, 1981)
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- Casa de Lava (dir. Pedro Costa, 1994)
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- Our Beloved Month of August (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2008)
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- Tabu (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2012)
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- What Now? Remind Me (dir. Joaquim Pinto, 2013)
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- Horse Money (dir. Pedro Costa, 2014)
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- Arabian Nights (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2015)
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Additional Resources on Selected Major Portuguese Films
Aniki Bóbó by Date: 2016
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window Full text back issues of core scholarly journals, browsable and searchable across multiple disciplines. Coverage starts with first issue, with moving wall for most recent 3-5 years. UCLA has access to selected JSTOR e-books only. JSTOR also includes primary source collections, including images from Artstor.
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- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Indexes worldwide publications on literature, language, linguistics, folklore, film, television, and theater from 1923 to the present. See also the MLA Directory of Periodicals.
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- Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window Articles and reviews from a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, circus, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television, and more. Former database title: International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) Full Text.
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- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Full text of current issues (from about 1990) of scholarly journals published by university presses, chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Browsable by discipline and full-text searchable across all disciplines. UCLA has access to Muse e-books published from 2017-present, plus a selected number of other e-book titles.
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- Portugal International Film Festival "The Portugal International Film Festival will have its fifth edition in 2022 and aims to promote Portuguese and World Cinema. Held in the city of Lisbon, the Festival will award the best films with a certificate and trophy. The Festival was created to celebrate the art of filmmaking and to honor the filmmakers who make it all possible. This Festival will award national and international filmmakers."
- Portugal Film — Portuguese Film Agency Established in 2013, Portugal Film - Portuguese Film Agency annually publishes a catalog of directors, as well as short and feature films in all genres and formats.
- ROSSIO Portal The ROSSIO Portal is a web-based platform that collects information and aggregates sources from 17 content providers on Portugese cultural heritage into a single user interface.
Selected Portuguese Films
The Green Years (dir. Paulo Rocha, 1963)
" . . . . The Green Years, gloriously shot in black and white, is an extraordinary and haunting coming-of-age tale. Nineteen-year-old Julio heads to Lisbon from the provinces and gets a job as a shoemaker for his uncle Raul. But when he meets Ilda, a confident young housemaid who becomes a regular shop visitor, the two begin a tentative romance until the realities of the outside world come crashing through."
Winner of Best First Film at the 1964 Locarno Film Festival.
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Francisca (dir. Manoel de Oliveira, 1981)
"Based on Agustina Bessa-Luís’ acclaimed novel, itself inspired by a true story that occurred in the 19th century, Manoel de Oliveira’s FRANCISCA recounts the life of a young man, a son of an English officer, who lets himself become a prisoner of love resulting in fatalism and disgrace. With its gorgeous cinematography, gloomy interiors, and show-stopping gala set-pieces, FRANCISCA is one of the legendary director’s crowning achievements."
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Casa de Lava (dir. Pedro Costa, 1994)
"In only his second feature, Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa brilliantly reworked Jacques Tourneur's classic I Walked with a Zombie into a reflection on his country’s colonial legacy. A nurse, Mariana , accompanies Leão to his home on the volcanic islands of Cape Verde after an accident sends him into a coma. Yet he goes unrecognized by fellow denizens, leaving Mariana trapped with and eventually entranced by a mysterious community."
Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Our Beloved Month of August (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2008)
" . . . . OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST is an intoxicating blend of visuals, sound and music that follows the strange relationship between a father, a daughter and a nephew in a traveling pop band."
Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival. Nominated for the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice International Film Festival.
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Tabu (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2012)
" . . . Tabu is the exquisitely surreal two-part tale of Aurora, who upon her death-bed will make a mysterious request to see a man no one had ever heard of, transporting us to the foothills of 1960s Africa in order to tell a story that occurred fifty years ago - the story of an irrational taboo and its extravagant consequences."
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Arabian Nights Volume 1: The Restless One (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2015)
"Part three of Miguel Gomes' monumental and dazzlingly original three-part update of the Middle Eastern folk tale, One Thousand and One Nights. In which Scheherazade doubts that she will still be able to tell stories to please the King, given that what she has to tell weighs three thousand tons. She therefore escapes from the palace and travels the kingdom in search of pleasure and enchantment. Her father, the Grand-Vizier, arranges to meet her at the Ferris wheel and Scheherazade resumes her narration: O auspicious King, in old shanty towns of Lisbon there was a community of bewitched men who, with all dedication and passion, devoted themselves to teaching birds to sing… And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent." Official Selection at Cannes FIlm Fesitval and the Toronto International Film Festival.
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Arabian Nights Volume 2: The Desolate One (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2015)
"Part two of Miguel Gomes' monumental and dazzlingly original three-part update of the Middle Eastern folk tale, One Thousand and One Nights. In which Scheherazade tells of how desolation invaded men: It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a distressed judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence on a night when all three moons are aligned. A runaway murderer will wander through the land for over forty days and will tele transport himself to escape the Police while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad! The residents of a tower block in the suburbs will save parrots and piss inside lifts while surrounded by dead people and ghosts; including in fact a dog that… And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent. Damned tales! If things continue this way my daughter will surely end up with her throat slit! the Grand-Vizier, Scheherazade's father, thinks in his palace in Baghdad." Official Selection at Cannes FIlm Fesitval and the Toronto International Film Festival.
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Arabian Nights Volume 3: The Enchanted One (dir. Miguel Gomes, 2015)
"Part three of Miguel Gomes' monumental and dazzlingly original three-part update of the Middle Eastern folk tale, One Thousand and One Nights. In which Scheherazade doubts that she will still be able to tell stories to please the King, given that what she has to tell weighs three thousand tons. She therefore escapes from the palace and travels the kingdom in search of pleasure and enchantment. Her father, the Grand-Vizier, arranges to meet her at the Ferris wheel and Scheherazade resumes her narration: O auspicious King, in old shanty towns of Lisbon there was a community of bewitched men who, with all dedication and passion, devoted themselves to teaching birds to sing… And seeing the morning break, Scheherazade fell silent." Official Selection at Cannes FIlm Fesitval and the Toronto International Film Festival.
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