'Twenty-fourth screening of the film programme Manoel de Oliveira e o Cinema Português”, held in conjunction with the third part of the exhibition of the same name. The screening will feature “En une poignée de mains amies” (1996) by Manoel de Oliveira and Jean Rouch, and “Porto da Minha Infância” (2001) by Manoel de Oliveira, presented by curator Bernard Despomadères and filmmaker and professor João Mário Grilo.

24 JUN | WED | SUNEN UNE POIGNÉE DE MAINS AMIES

Manoel de Oliveira and Jean Rouch | FRA, POR | 1996 | 30'

In Portugal, Manoel de Oliveira takes Jean Rouch to see the Maria Pia Bridge, built by Gustave Eiffel, which spans the Douro River right in the heart of Porto. Rouch tells him that one of the first documentaries he saw was “Douro, faina fluvial” (Manoel de Oliveira’s first film, 1931) and proposes, in May 1996, to shoot a new film about this river. Jean Rouch evokes Dziga Vertov and echoes his words: What matters is not making a film, but that it gives rise to other films. On this occasion, Manoel de Oliveira writes a poem whose stanzas are read alternately by him, in Portuguese, and by Rouch, in French. Later, on the nearby hills overlooking the bridge and the Douro, they evoke Os Lusíadas, written by Luís de Camões during the great maritime voyages and discoveries initiated by Henry the Navigator in the early 15th century. Finally, strolling under the bridge’s arch, Jean Rouch and Manoel de Oliveira admire one last time the curves and gracefulness of the metal bridge’s architecture.

PORTO DA MINHA INFÂNCIA | PORTO OF MY CHILDHOOD

Manoel de Oliveira | POR, FRA | 2001 | 60'

A first-person film, Porto of My Childhood is a look by its director, Manoel de Oliveira, at his place of origin, the city of Porto, and the time that has crossed and changed them (him and the city). This journey through memory is accessed through the most diverse materials: archival images, photographs, excerpts from the director's own films and the re-enactment of past experiences. An example of one of the most unique facets of Oliveira's cinema – the management of multiple and intricate layers of time – Porto of My Childhood documents, through a subjective point of view and within the limits of what is commonly understood as documentary, the persistence of memory in the face of the transience of reality.