Portuguese language film resource at Dartmouth
- Portuguese language films @ DartmouthPortuguese-language films at Dartmouth is a website to consult and contribute reviews, ratings, and detailed information about films currently held by the Dartmouth College Library. It serves as both a gateway to the library's collection of Portuguese language film, and as a resource for students, faculty, staff, and film aficionados worldwide to exchange information and opinion about these films.
Other library resource(s)
Manoel de Oliveira from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Manoel de Oliveira (b. 1908, Porto–d. 2015, Porto) was Portugal’s most important film director. His career spanned eight decades from his first film, the silent “Douro, Faina Fluvial” (1931), to his last, “O Velho do Restelo” (2014).
Internet resource(s)
- Lusophone Studies (Portuguese): CinemaJill Baron, the Romance Languages librarian, has put together resources under the Lusophone Studies LibGuide.
Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introduction to Portuguese cinema
Aspectos da praia de Cascais/Views of the Cascais beach (Manuel Maria da Costa Veiga, 1899) is usually credited as the first Portuguese film, and Veiga made films of a number of royal occasions at the turn of the 20th century. Os crimes de Diogo Alves/The crimes of Diogo Alves (Joao Tavares, 1911), produced by the La Portugalia film company in 1911, is considered the country’s first feature film. During the 1910s and 1920s imports from France and Spain were dominant, though a small number of Portuguese literary and stageplay adaptations, such as Os lobos/The Wolves (Rino Lupo, 1923), were successful. In the early years of the New State (1933–74) the Salazar regime created the Secretariat of National Propaganda (later renamed National Secretariat of Information, Popular Culture, and Tourism), and there was an expectation that films would complement propagandist and nation-building activities. Accordingly, the most popular genre at this time was the ‘Lisbon comedy’, a gentle comedy of manners that offered audiences visions of an orderly, respectful society. José Cotinelli Tomos’s Canção de Lisboa/Song of Lisbon (1933) is a celebrated example of the genre, and is also Portugal’s first synchronized sound feature. Lisbon comedies played well in Brazil, a key export market for Portuguese films. Many early ‘talkies’ were also vehicles for the fado, a popular local musical form, and song-and-dance sequences feature heavily in many films of the period. A number of documentaries were also produced in the 1930s, including António Lopes Ribeiro’s A revoluçao de Maio/A Revolution in May (1937), which one critic describes as a film of ‘nationalist exaltation’ (see compilation film). Nationalist sentiment continued to be consolidated in the 1940s, with a cycle of history films, including Camões (Leitão de Barros, 1946) and Rainha Santa (Rafael Gil and Anibal Contreiras, 1947). ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Portugal, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 May. 2021
Searching the online catalog
This is a guide for the cinema of Portugal. You can use the subject headings below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number ranges are also included. Please note: these are not the only call numbers, but they have the majority of items. These searches will also lead you to movie titles.
- motion pictures portugalCall number ranges PN 1993.5 .P5.
- motion pictures ... [insert country name]You can insert the name of a country which uses Portuguese as a language to see what we may have.
Introductory reading(s)
- Cine iberoamericano: los desafíos del nuevo siglo byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .L3 G458 2007ISBN: 9789879355411
The cinema of Spain and Portugal by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .S7 C545 2005ISBN: 9781904764458An 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).
Portugal's global cinema: industry, history and culture by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781784531980Portuguese 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. ...
Portuguese film, 1930-1960: the staging of the new state regime by Call Number: Baker-Berry Ref. PN 1993.5 .P6 V55 2013ISBN: 9781623568634Portuguese 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.
Selected book titles
- Azuis ultramarinos: propaganda colonial e censura no cinema do Estado Novo byCall Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P6 P48 2015ISBN: 9789724418599
Identity and difference: postcoloniality and transnationality in Lusophone films by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P6 F474 2012ISBN: 9783643902177In 1974, the Carnation Revolution ended Portugal's dictatorship and empire and thus opened up a new chapter in the country's film history. Besides national productions, transnational films that result from agreements with the ex-colonies - Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, and Mozambique - now engage with the legacy of Portugal's colonial history and its powerful myths of cultural unity, such as lusophony and lusotropicalism.
Jugar con la memoria: el cine portugués en el siglo XXI by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P8 J943 2014ISBN: 8494175343
Migration in Lusophone cinema by ISBN: 9781137408914With more than 250 million speakers globally, the Lusophone world has a rich history of filmmaking. This edited volume explores the representation of the migratory experience in contemporary cinema from Portuguese-speaking countries, exploring how Lusophone films, filmmakers, producers, studios, and governments relay narratives of migration.
Screening songs in Hispanic and Lusophone cinema by Call Number: ML 2075 .S3 2012ISBN: 9780719083808In this volume, eighteen experts from a variety of academic backgrounds explore the use of songs in films from the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds. This volume illustrates how - rather than simply helping to tell the story of - songs in Hispanic and Lusophone cinema commonly upset the hierarchy of the visual over the aural, thereby rendering their hearing a complex and rich subject for analysis.
Finding journal articles
Articles and other writings about Portuguese language films can be found in many publications. Our collection includes several journals which look exclusively at Portuguese language films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
- Cinema: journal of philosophy and the moving image byCall Number: Electronic journalThis journal publishes original works in the field of philosophical inquiry into cinema.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about this national cinema.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie titles
Find more Portuguese film titles in the library's online catalog.
Night train to Lisbon by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #16768Latin teacher Raimund Gregorius finds a book by Portuguese poet and doctor Amadeu de Prado and his life is irrevocably changed. Determined to learn more about the author, Gregorius boards the night train to Lisbon and begins to piece together an epic story of oppression and revolution, loyalty and betrayal, love and jealousy, played out against the backdrop of a brutal fascist dictatorship. In his exploration of Amadeu de Prado's life, Gregorius finds that life can change in an instant.
Capitães de abril = April captainsCall Number: Jones Media DVD #3339In Portugal on April 24, 1974 the words of poet Jose Alfonso in the banned song "Grandola" sparked a revolution when the song was broadcast over the radio over and over again as a signal for a military coup against the oldest dictatorship in Europe.
Amália by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18163Biopic film loosely based on the life and career of the Portuguese singer Amália Rodrigues.
O convento = The conventCall Number: Jones Media Video tape #3940ISBN: 9781572520561An American professor travels with his beautiful wife Hélène to a Portuguese monastery to prove his theory that Shakespeare was actually of Spanish Jewish origin. The host at the convent is the sinister Baltar, who becomes infatuated with Hélène. A classic battle of good versus evil ensues as the flirtation between the two develops leaving the viewer wondering which one of these characters is the Devil himself.
Letters from Fontainhas: three films by Pedo Costa by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9851ISBN: 9781604652369Portuguese director Pedro Costa has been steadily building an impressive body of work since the late eighties, and these are the three films that put him on the map: spare, painterly portraits of battered, largely immigrant lives in the slums of Fontainhas, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Lisbon.
Um filme falado = A talking pictureCall Number: Jones Media DVD #3625Eight-year-old Maria and her history professor mother embark on an ocean cruise from Portugal to Bombay, India. As three mysterious and glamorous women board the ship, their picturesque journey begins to grow in tension and complexity.
Vale Abraão = Val AbrahamCall Number: Jones Media DVD #2457Story of Ema, a very attractive young girl with enormous power over men. She marries Dr. Carlo Paiva, who she is not attracted to, but is her father's friend and they move to the Valley of Abraham. With time she begins to feel unhappy about her marriage, so, with all the freedom she has, and the lonliness that freedom creates, she takes a lover.
