Portuguese Cineclubs - One Step Ahead (Part II)

Anabela Moutinho and Ana Soares

How were such obstacles overcome? With courage, stubbornness, sacrifice and slyness. To resist was the motto. One thing is sure: the cineclub movement was a movement of resistance to fascism, for it was a movement of cultural resistance. It resisted the short-sightedness, the retrograde moral, social and ideological pillars of the regime — God, Homeland, Family, and Authority — but it also resisted the dependency from commercial interests of production, distribution, and exhibition, which we will now consider.
In 1957 the great exhibition companies in Portugal had reached an important legal and commercial victory. It was forbidden to have equipment for both formats (16 and 35mm) in the same room. Besides, rooms that exhibited specifically 16mm films could not be built less than 3 km away from places with cinema rooms for the exhibition of 35mm pictures. This intelligent strategy would hinder the proliferation of independent exhibitors whose initial investments were enough for the portable format, but insufficient for the commercial one. What did Cineclubs do? As non-profit organisations, they could show films in either format in traditional cinema rooms, which they rent at very high costs. The door was thus open for other films, some from other times.
Films were (and surprisingly continue to be) literally destroyed at the end of the exhibition contract. This did not affect much the distributors, who took profit from the novelty of first releases. What did Cineclubs do? They insisted in fighting for a cinématheque which would serve as a deposit of the memory of Portuguese and world cinema. After continuous campaigns, in 1955 the Government finally announced the creation of the National Cinématheque in 1958. The Cinématheque firts lent films to a Cineclub in the following year.
Distributors and exhibitors joined forces in the campaign for dubbing (as it happened in Italy or Spain), which would increase the numbers of cinema goers. What did Cineclubs do? Through the voice of their most important representatives, they opposed such measure, in benefit of the pureness of the film, which would be hurt if the original voice of an actor were not present. For the first time Salazar agreed with the cineclubs, if for the worse and cruellest reasons: Portugal had an illiteracy rate of about 45%, and this meant that subtitles were the most effective means of leading a few million Portuguese away from the fascination of the screen — and from its subversive messages!
As far as the Portuguese production is concerned, we need to go back in time. Salazar came to the power at about the same time when the first Portuguese sound picture was complete — Cottinelli Telmo’s Lisbon Song (1933) [12]. By this time, a second try at the creation of an industry in our little country was on the way. However, our Cinecittà (1932, Tóbis) project never saw the light of the day, due to the impossibility of getting private funds returned with Portuguese films. In 1941, the movie director and producer Lopes Ribeiro — to whom subservience to Salazar was not excessive when he considered the obvious need Portuguese cinema had of official support — established the first production plans with State support, which constituted the "National Cinema Fund" in 1948 [13]. The most popular genres were established: folklore, history, neighbourhood comedies, and musicals. The 30s and 40s were years of some glitter in Portuguese cinema, at least until the financial disaster of Camões (1946, dir. Leitão de Barros), the film in which even Salazar had seen some public utility. The downfall was so significant that the dictator would never again spend so much money in films and that would end up adding to the decrease of interest and of quality of the movies.
Thus, when the Cineclubs appeared and especially during the first decade of their formation (the 50s) Portuguese cinema was going through one of its lowest moments. The stars were growing old, and fashion singers were called in the vain expectation of getting larger audiences. The number of films produced was still small (or null: in 1955 there was not one single feature film); Tóbis studios closed down in 1952; television started to operate in 1956, causing a fall in the number of cinema goers, which led to the closing down of many movie rooms. The disorientation was complete.
What did Cineclubs do? They strongly discussed the essence of Portuguese cinema (is it enough to have been directed in Portugal for a film to be considered Portuguese? Must it get inspiration from national history or folklore? What is our identity, and to what extent can we give account of it in moving images?) and the structure of cinema in Portugal (is the sole solution for it in the creation of an industry? Or in the imitation of American success formulae? Or when we limit ourselves to being genuinely handicraft-cinema?). Cineclubs harshly criticised these Portuguese films marked by fascist values, and instead promoted and tried to show the best of national artistic cinematography of both the silent and the talking period, mainly those films which opened up new artistic ways. They avoided the forgetfulness the regime tried to foster about Manoel de Oliveira, a major figure of Portuguese cinema, either through the exhibition of his few films, or through tributes to him — as a general rule, Cineclubs were always able to recognise genius[14] . The most daring, the best organised, or the most financially capable cineclubs made an effort to produce films, amateur and/or experimental, or even semi-professional[15]. Among the cineclub members were those young people who would determine a change, those who, via their formation or their cinema culture, mostly acquired in the Cineclubs in Lisbon and Oporto, wished to leave no stone unturned. The authors of the New Portuguese Cinema, of the Portuguese "Nouvelle Vague" were all cineclub members. Once more, "cineclubs" equaled "vanguard"… It is however convenient not to manipulate the question: many of these people benefited simultaneously from a new State strategy, through scholarships to study abroad from the mentioned National Cinema Fund. This allowed for some to attend courses at IDHEC or in the London School of Film Technique. Besides, a course on cinema was promoted by the Portuguese Fascist Youth Movement, directed by one of those scholars, and the usefulness of it cannot be diminished. Both the scholarships and the Portuguese course aimed at creating a technical group of people who would air Portuguese cinema and the recently created television. What the State could not have predicted was the hurricane that air would generate.
Contact with other countries, as well as the possibility of watching important and new films, from the Nouvelle Vague or free-cinema, from Fellini to Bergman, the chance to have been assistant to Truffaut, Renoir, or Antonioni or, among those who stayed in Portugal, a willingness to do better and different, all led to greater creativity. These people, who were united for generation reasons and who discussed the latest play, the latest film, or book read, all shared an uneasiness towards a sad country dominated by that old man who, to top it all, in 1962 did not hesitate in blindly throwing Portugal into an absurd and untimely war against independence movements in the African colonies. These young people were determined to fight their own war, and on the ground they cherished the most. Cunha Telles founded Animatógrafo Productions with his personal funds and this production project brought out new films (Verdes Anos, Paulo Rocha, 1963), new actors, new technicians, new script writers, new musicians, and new stories with unhappy endings (Belarmino, Fernando Lopes, 1964), new documentaries, new photograph — in general, new ways of revealing the rottenness of the system. Others would follow before the whole picture could be complete. But the dream came to an end — a consequence of so much daring was the bankruptcy of Animatógrafo in 1967. It was another cul-de-sac: the regime allowed for nothing new, and nothing new could come out of the new generation.
However, in that same year of this impasse, the Oporto Cineclub promoted a "Week of New Portuguese Cinema", with the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation[16]. As it was frequent with the cineclubs, the week had not only films shown, but was complemented with round-tables and workshops with the directors. Some light resulted from the discussions and some future could be perceived: a document written then and signed by the participants established the main guidelines for cinema activity in Portugal.
That manifesto was handed to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, whose enviable financial capacity was turning it into a State within the State, which the true Government dared not to oppose. Those who signed the manifesto suggested that the Foundation would create a "Gulbenkian Centre for Cinema." The foundation refused that Centre, but proposed as an alternative the constitution of a cooperative of directors and other technicians, which it would financially support. And so it was. In 1970 the Portuguese Centre for Cinema was born, with a new breath for the New Cinema, and it was a sting on the decaying regime [17]. The new generation affirmed itself, and clearly demonstrated they were united in the fight against fascism and in the cultural resistance, equally born out of the cineclub scene. The regime itself recognised the defeat — in the beginning of 1974, the first list of film projects to be supported by the State (through the Portuguese Cinema Institute, created in 1972 as a late attempt to control what was uncontrollable), contained none of the traditional directors of commercial cinema. On the contrary, there were many names from the new generation. As Bénard da Costa, nowadays President of the Portuguese Cinemathéque wrote, "one month before the Revolution, the revolution arrived in the cinema"[18].
And on that day of April the Carnation Revolution took place. It was a democratic military coup dethroned the old regime. Freedom existed once again in Portugal — the freedom to vote, to get together, the freedom of expression. Political prisoners were freed, the State police got to an end and censorship was dismantled. People gained the right to constitute political parties. It was a happy occasion, and a mad one. There was joy, exuberance, exaggeration and radicalism in the new Portugal. However, when the monster that united us all was killed, a healthy separation begun. It happened in the cinema, and also in cineclubs. Naturally.
The Portuguese Cinema Centre, which in the beginning of 1974, had 36 members of a family which in fact never existed, was sprayed into several different cooperatives[19] grouped for esthetical but mainly for political reasons. To worsen things, the Portuguese Cinema Institute was equally dominated by a specific political movement, the very same of the government, who partly altered the 1971 Law to allow for the nationalisation of production media and for considering cinema professionals as public workers. Naturally, even the new State was biased in these discussions. The debate was hot and the divisions became clearer. The streets were conquered, the people were the main actors, and there were no film credits, because all works were experienced as collective... Cinema became engaged, and so did cineclubs.
Transition from the 60s to the 70s was harsh for the cineclub movement, and that is shown in the decrease of their number (18 in 1970). Were they tired of so many misfortunes? Was it the strain of the war? Were there other calls, such as the student crisis in 1969, in Coimbra? The fact is that the Revolution brought along a new dynamics and enthusiasm to cineclubs which had never ceased their activity, as well as to those which had suspended it. For the same reasons which carried Portugal on the shoulders of the Revolution, cineclubs were the stage of political fight, of schedules respecting revolutionary themes, of irritating and at the same time enchanting overreactions, such as demanding from the cineclub members to hiss at any film with a bourgeois and capitalistic mentality. Finally, in 1978 the genuine Portuguese Cineclub Federation was created, out of a dream designed 30 years before. Agreement was reached and this time the cineclubs themselves attained it. The constitution document was written and the goals were established. There were 30 cineclubs, and others were on the way. However, official support was practically inexistent, and the distribution and exhibition market did not help. There was a sort of "controlled enthusiasm" towards the free life of these associations, which had fought so much for freedom. From then (early 80s) until now the history becomes more confusing, and yet so simple — to resist, always resist, to keep on doing as good as possible.
On the one hand, Portuguese cinema tried to resist the fluctuations of cultural politics (when there is one), it tried to resist the shortage of available funds, the box-office flops, the absence of commercial first run of the films, the fights between two old ways of considering cinema (commercial and popular cinema vs. artistic and author cinema), which leave so many wounds in a small cinematography as the Portuguese. But still, to do better. Serge Daney once said that Portugal was the only country with more cinema authors per square meter. If it were necessary, the many presences and prizes in film festivals outside Portugal, at least since 1976, are here to prove it. Either that or the number of film sales for foreign broadcast. At times, films which are not at all minor, have great commercial success in Portugal. At times also our audiences can recognise heroes in Portuguese filmmakers. On the other hand, more and more each day the true heroes are cineclubs and their members. And they have had to cross many deserts. In the middle of the 80s, video invaded Portugal. Besides, the two sections of distribution and exhibition were concentrated in one company (linked to the American majors), which strangled the market, including the non-commercial one of the cineclubs. The number of cinema goers radically decreased (between 1975 and 1995, it went from 40 million tickets and 400 show rooms to 7 million, and 200 rooms...). The 60% of American first runs increased to 82% nowadays[20]. The 16mm format (portable projectors) was extinguished, and with it one of the possibilities of diversifying programs. Ironically, the Cinématheque we were so eager to have creates more and more difficulties to the lending of its copies. In the later years there was a sudden appearance of multiplexes and popcorns. Besides, private television shows us films cut into pieces between the commercials. Another desert is that of the indigence of cinematographic editions in Portuguese, as well as of discussion magazines[21]. At last, the arbitrariness of State or regional administration support.
What do cineclubs do? We continue to resist. We are directly related to some of the most important cinema festivals in Portugal. There are cineclubs who promote animation and fiction film production. Others foster the discussion about cinema, through the organisation of cinema seminars or courses. All of us continue to be an alternative to the commercial path of the experience and love for cinema. At the moment there are 35 cineclubs in Portugal. To resist, to always resist, remains our motto.
From the height of its 44 years of non-stop activity, the Faro Cineclub is proud of its part in the histories told here. This is why it is our pleasure to be before you now. Always, always doing our best.