António Lopes Ribeiro e António Ferro: cumplicidades cinematográficas e os projectos de internacionalização do cinema português

Abstract

António Lopes Ribeiro was a major figure in Portuguese cinema for over three decades. In this paper, I intend to present and analyse the projects in which he was involved with the aim to create a national cinema with international projection, during the 1940s, and in particular during the Second World War. In order to guarantee the economic sustainability of the Portuguese film industry and continuous production, Lopes Ribeiro believed that distribution needed to be expanded beyond the traditional markets, namely, the colonies and the Portuguese emigration communities in Brazil. I will demonstrate how these internationalisation plans were only able to be materialised with the direct support of political power, examining his connection to António Ferro, the director of the organisation that oversaw cinema, the National Propaganda Secretariat/ National Secretariat of Information. Finally, I will look at the reasons why his projects for Portuguese cinema failed. Methodologically, this research draws on documents from the National Secretariat of Information and the Salazar archives, as well as other primary sources, mainly newspapers and magazines specialising in cinema, as well as a set of letters written by Lopes Ribeiro to António Ferro, from the Quadros Foundation.