This volume entitled 20 Filmes Fundamentais do Cinema Português brings together texts that resulted from the homonymous project that produced five short films, in LabCom – Laboratório de Comunicação e Artes, between September and December 2022, financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT ) in the scope of the Summer with Science program. The main objective of the project consisted of highlighting 20 indispensable and relevant films for a better understanding of Portuguese cinematography. The texts now published aim to contribute with new perspectives on Portuguese Cinema for an approximation between the Portuguese spectator and its cinema, and to disseminate the history and aesthetics of Portuguese cinema.
The image of the cape belongs to the film O Movement of Coisas (1985), by Manuela Serra, a work with unique cinematographic qualities that, with each exhibition, fascinates young viewers, which is augmented by a production process that also reveals the fragility of cinematography. Portuguese. This is another example of a work that, after decades of silencing and invisibility, recovered consensually its status as a fundamental film of Portuguese cinema, demonstrating that the canons require a permanent critical review.