A compelling history of Portuguese cinema that reveals how politics, culture and technology shaped a national film tradition with international reach.


The book focuses on the relationship between the major political, technological, and cultural movements in Portugal and the construction of a film industry, a national cinema, an international cinema, an auteur's cinema, and a Portuguese cinephile culture. After an introduction presenting a brief overview of Portuguese cinema in the context of Portuguese history and culture since the nineteenth century, the following chapters delve into silent film and the development of genres between 1896 and 1934; sound film and the construction of a national cinema under Portugal's newly established Estado Novo in the 1930s; the golden age and waning of the Portuguese comedy and class dramas in the 40s and 50s; the emergence of Cinema Novo between 1955 and 1979; cinematic responses to Portugal's political transitions in the late twentieth century; and Portuguese cinema in the contexts of private television and European cinema between the 1980s and the present day. The afterword reflects on the history, character, and function of Portuguese Cinema that Portuguese producers, directors, actors, critics, politicians, scholars, artists, and singers have made over the last 120 years and proposes Portuguese cinema as an international cinema.