PT | EN
History(s) of Portuguese Cinema: "Noite Portuguesa". Projection of order and desire(s) for freedom
Maria do Carmo Piçarra
SCHEDULE

February 21 to March 27, 2024

Wednesday
19:30–22:30

DURATION

18 hours | 6 sessions

LOCAL

School of Arts – Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (Campo de Ourique)

This course will address the ways in which cinema was instrumentalized and projected a supposed “Portuguese way of being in the world” while, in parallel, and through the New Cinema, it resisted the constraints imposed by censorship and engendered modes of production independent of the State. It revalues the authors made invisible by the regime and the dominant production system, also proposing an overview of liberation cinemas in the former Portuguese colonies.

“American night” designates the way of darkening a sequence of shots filmed during the day. The “Portuguese Night” module provides an overview of the ways – censorship, financing policy for explicit propaganda or nationalist films, distribution and exhibition (particularly the case of the SPN/SNI's Cinema Ambulante) – in which the Estado Novo conditioned cinema and highlights the authors' strategies to free themselves from the ideological corsets and imposed formatting.

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Main topics
  • Background. Birth of cinema in a nation. The world in Portugal. From the first director of cinematography (still) without looking, Leitão de Barros, to “typically Portuguese” cinema;
  • Birth of the nation in cinema. Lopes Ribeiro and Leitão de Barros in the context of propaganda cinema. International influences and articulations (national socialist, Soviet, fascist, “Francoist” cinema). The Iron years (1933-1949). Order projection. SPN/SNI People's Cinema and propaganda;
  • The Portuguese comedy (1933-1947). The “strange case” of Manoel de Oliveira and Brum do Canto. Experimentalism and neorealism in cinema (1942-1965) (Areal);
  • The dawn of the film society. The New Portuguese Cinema (1962-1982). The Gulbenkian years;
  • Cinema censorship. “The fall of the empire” in colonial propaganda;
  • Films of liberation: Films of Maldoror and “Behind the lines” of the Guinea liberation movement. Amílcar Cabral's project.
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Bibliography

AREAL, L. 2011. “A singular neo-realism: the cinema of Manuel Guimarães”. In LOPES, F. (Org.) Cinema in Portuguese: Actas das II Jornadas. Covilhã: LabCom Books.

BAPTISTA, T. 2009. “Nationally correct: The invention of Portuguese cinema”. 20th Century Studies Magazine 9, 307-323.

COSTA, CA 2021. Cinema and people – Representations of popular culture in Portuguese cinema. Lisbon: Editions 70.

CUNHA, P. 2010 “Censorship and the new Portuguese cinema”. In RIBEIRO, MMT (coord.) Other fights for History. Coimbra: University of Coimbra, 537-551.

WEDGE. P., LARANJEIRO, C. 2017 “Guiné-Bissau: from State cinema to cinema outside the State”. REBECA 10 v. 5 n. two

CUNHA, P. 2010. “Manoel de Oliveira. From marginal author to official filmmaker.” In CUNHA, P. and SALLES, M. Olhares: Manoel de Oliveira. Rio de Janeiro Editions LCV/SR3/UERJ.

CUNHA, P. 2016. “Towards a history of the histories of Portuguese cinema”. Aniki: Portuguese moving image magazine 3/1.

CUNHA, P. 2013. “When Portuguese cinema was modern”. In CUNHA, P. and SALES, M., Portuguese cinema: An essential guide. São Paulo: SESI-SP.

GRANJA, P. 2007. “Cineclubs and cinephilia: between mass culture and elite culture”. 20th Century Studies, 7, Coimbra, University of Coimbra Press, 361-384.

GRAY, R. 2020. Cinemas of the Mozambican revolution. Anti-colonialism, independence and internationalism in filmmaking, 1968-1991. Boydell and Brewer, 15-64.

MONTEIRO, PF 2000. “A margin in the center: the art and power of the 'new cinema'”. In TORGAL, LR (ed.) Cinema under the eyes of Salazar, Torgal. Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 306-338.

PIÇARRA, M. d. C. 2015. Ultramarine blues. Colonial propaganda and censorship in the cinema of the Estado Novo. Lisbon: Editions 70.

PIÇARRA, M. d. C. 2022. Gaze from Maldoror. Singularity of a political cinema. Porto: Húmus Editions.

PIÇARRA, M. d. C. 2020. Project order. People's Cinema and Salazarist propaganda. 1935-1954. Lisbon: OsPássaros.

PIÇARRA, M. d. C. 2013. “A cinematography without looking gains the first director”. In CUNHA, P. and SALLES, M., Portuguese cinema: An essential guide. São Paulo: SESI-SP.

FEES

300, 00 €

Payment conditions
Payment can be made in full upon registration.

Special conditions
10% discount for Autónoma community
30% discount for early birds (until February 7th)
40% discount for under-23

ACCESS CONDITIONS

No access conditions.

REGISTRATIONS

Number of vacancies: 18

The course will only take place with a minimum number of registered students.

Maria do Carmo Piçarra

Maria do Carmo Piçarra has a doctorate, master's and degree in Communication Sciences from FCSH-UNL, in addition to having carried out post-doctoral research (2015-2018) in Communication Sciences at CECS-U. Minho and CFAC-U. Reading. She was deputy president of the Institute of Cinema, Audiovisual and Multimédia (1998-1999), founder and co-editor (2012-2018) of ANIKI – Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento and is a film critic and programmer. She received a scholarship from FCT (doctoral and post-doctoral) and from the Gulbenkian Fine Arts Service and a scholarship from Fundação Oriente in 2018-19. He taught at ISCTE-IUL (2012-2016) and at the Escola Superior de Educação – Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal (2014). He published, among other titles and articles, “Azuis ultramarinos. Colonial propaganda and censorship in the cinema of the Estado Novo” (2015), “Salazar vai ao cinema I and II” (2006, 2011), and coordinated, with Jorge António, the Angola trilogy, “the birth of a nation” (2013, 2014, 2015) and, with Teresa Castro, “(Re)Imagining African Independence. Film, Visual Arts and the Fall of the Portuguese Empire” (2017).