Oporto of My Childhood

Film maker Manoel de Oliveira returns to his native city, Porto, a setting that he has used two times previously. The city inspired Working on the Douro River, his first film for cinema, and also, The Artist and the City, of 1956, a film that marked his return to the cinema after an absence of 14 years. Now the film maker has decided to film the city, not through the eyes of a documentarist, but through recollection. This is the city of his childhood that has survived only in memory, witnessed, through signs, in the lyrics of a song, and old photographs. “A documentary about the city would be impossible, for it is full of road works. These are memories of a life style and images from the past that, even though they belong to me, do not make up an autobiography”, says film maker Manoel de Oliveira. Nevertheless, he could not resist the temptation and decided to end this film with the same image that, seventy years ago, he used to open his first production.

Born in Porto, Portugal, in 1908. Before being a director, he was race driver and athlete. Made his first short silent film, Douro, Faina Fluvial, in 1931. In the 1940’s, he became a winemaker. He returned to cinema in the 1970’s with authorial films that made him one of the most unique directors in history. Oliveira had all of his movies since Ill-Fated Love (1978, 3rd Mostra) presented at the São Paulo Film Festival. He gained a complete retrospective of his work at the 15th Mostra and at the 29th Mostra, respectively in 1991 and 2005. He won Mostra’s Special Festival Award with The Cannibals (1988, 12nd Mostra), the Critics Prize for Abraham’s Valley (1993, 17th Mostra) and I’m Going Home (2001, 25th Mostra), and the Humanity Award for the ensemble of his work (2004, 28th Mostra). He also directed titles such as Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (2009, 33rd Mostra), The Strange Case of Angelica (2010, 34th Mostra), the segment From Visible to Invisible, part of the film Invisible World (2011, 35th Mostra), produced by Mostra, Gebo and the Shadow (2012, 36th Mostra) and The Old Man of Belem (2014, 38th Mostra). Died in 2015 at the age of 106.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA