Cinema
In the 1990s around 10 full-length fictional works were produced per annum, Portugal's filmmakers tending to be artisans. Financing of Portuguese cinema is by state grants and from television stations. The internal market is very small and Portuguese penetration of international markets is fairly precarious. A film is considered a success when it draws an audience of more than 150.000, which few Portuguese films manage to achieve.
Director Manoel de Oliveira is the oldest director in the world, and continues to make films at the age of 103. Since 1990 has made an average of one film per annum. He has received international recognition awards and won the respect of the cinematography community all over the world. Retrospectives of his works have been shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival (1992), the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (1993), the San Francisco Film Festival, and the Cleveland Museum of Art (1994). Despite his international recognition, the films of Oliveira (and that of other Portuguese directors) are neglected locally.
João César Monteiro, a member of the generation that founded the "New Portuguese Cinema" in the 1960s which was influenced by the Nouvelle Vague, a provocative film maker in the 1990s made "O Último Mergulho" (1992), "A Comédia de Deus" (1995), "Le Bassin de John Wayne" (1997) and "As Bodas de Deus" (1998). "A Comédia de Deus" won the Jury's Special Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1995.
Teresa Villaverde is a younger filmmaker and in the 1990s she surfaced as a director, her film (Três Irma's, 1994) won the best actress award at the Venice Film Festival.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Portugal
Famous quotes containing the word cinema:
“If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this: Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous use of space. Cinema ... has access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
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