The “extraordinary personal archive” of director Manoel de Oliveira has given rise to a new exhibition on his work between 1970 and 1990, between incomprehension and recognition, which opens on Friday at Casa do Cinema in Porto.
This exhibition is the second of three exhibitions organized by the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, in a “long term project” with the aim of “showcasing the filmmaker’s extraordinary personal archive, which is entirely deposited in Serralves”, reads the exhibition itinerary.
On display until November 3, the exhibition is entitled “Liberdade! 1970-1990”, covering twenty years of Manoel de Oliveira’s cinematographic production, marked by the films “O Passado e o Presente” (1971) and “NON ou a Vã Glória de Mandar” (1990).
“This is a period in which the incomprehension (and even violence) with which some of these films were received in Portugal was in stark contrast to the recognition they received from international festivals and foreign critics,” say curators António Preto and João Mário Grilo in the exhibition’s script.
In that period, Manoel de Oliveira made more than ten films that “illustrate one of the most seminal, inventive and radical phases” of his career, namely “Amor de Perdição”, “Visita ou Memórias e Confissões” (1982) – which, on the filmmaker’s instructions, was only revealed publicly after his death – or “Os Canibais” (1988).
For the two curators, Manoel de Oliveira’s work from this period, “in its unbridled and fearless radicalism, more than any other, embodied the cry for freedom that was being imposed” in the first years after the dictatorship.
According to the curators, this second exhibition “continues the work from the previous exhibition”, “A Bem da Nação (1929-1969)”, which was on show in 2023.
It’s about “unarchiving the archive, listening to what it tells us and showing us what it shows us,” the curators explain.
Manoel de Oliveira, who died in 2015 at the age of 107, “diligently kept all the documentation related to his work – drafts, scripts, plans, shooting sheets, correspondence, photographs, posters, books, newspaper clippings, hundreds of awards…”.
It is on this archive, deposited by the filmmaker’s heirs, that Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira has been working not only to organize exhibitions but also publications that should culminate in a “major international colloquium”, yet to be announced.
The aim is to “draw the university community’s attention to the Manoel de Oliveira archive” and to stimulate research into the documentary archive.
The exhibition “Liberdade! 1970-1990”, which Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira is also putting on to celebrate the 50th anniversary of April 25, 1974, will feature an extensive film cycle with films by Oliveira and other Portuguese directors released at the same time.
For example, António da Cunha Telles’ “O Cerco” (1970), Fernando Matos Silva’s “O mal-amado” (1974), Rui Simões’ “Deus Pátria Autoridade” (1976), António-Pedro Vasconcelos’ “Oxalá” (1987), Manuela Serra’s “O movimento das coisas” (1985) and Pedro Costa’s “O sangue” (1989) will be shown.
