Portuguese animation is growing rapidly, or at least with big companies hardly existing in Europe, "auteur" or "independent" animation is doing so. Until the mid-Eighties the Lusitanian flag was flown only by Mario Vasques das Neves and Artur Correia & Ricardo Neto’s production company Topefilme, but during the last decade the works of Abi Feijó, Regina Pessoa, Pedro Serrazina, José Miguel Ribeiro and Cristina Teixeira haven't missed an important international animation festival in the world. And, speaking of festivals, no one can fail to mention that a lovely coast village called Espinho, near Porto, has accommodated one of the best and most exciting events of the entire international calendar since 1977 -- Cinanima.

This History of Portuguese Animation Cinema is the work of the leading and most stalwart of the Cinanima organizers, Antonio Gaio. I suspect he is the living human being that has viewed more Portuguese animated films than anyone else, has met more Portuguese animation film-makers than anyone else and has devoted more spare time and free work to Portuguese animation than anyone else. Therefore, he makes the most of this privileged position by giving lasting witness to everything you wanted to know about his country and artists working frame by frame, and redresses a long overdue shortcoming, as we foreigners certainly knew very little (although not by choice!) about this subject matter until the text was released in English at the Annecy 2002 festival.

What Is In Store
When did animation get started in Portugal? In an interview released in 1988, photographer Luis Nunes stated that he had produced an animated short commercial way back in 1920. The actual animation consisted of, he maintained, some movements of a dog's head (it was that nice doggie listening to the phonograph in the His Master’s Voice trademark). It might well be a lie (as Nunes was only thirteen in 1920), but it is true that their pioneering era started around this time. Over the following decades the output was poor, sporadic and amateurish, with the exception of some highlights in the field of advertising. For instance, O Melhor da Rua (The Best One of the Street), a sixty second commercial by Artur Correia, won many international awards in 1966. In 1970, Eu Quero a Lua (I Want the Moon), another short by Artur Correia, paved the road for modern Portuguese animation. Day by day and year by year new film-makers got started, the Cinanima festival opened, various international workshops gathered young enthusiasts, a great film critic by the name of Vasco Granja produced a good TV program on animation -- and above all a new life and a new reason to look forward was triggered by the return of democracy in 1974, after many decades of a fascist dictatorship.

A good half of the book is devoted to a section by the title of "Dictionary," which lists, in alphabetical order, the most important living film-makers with short biographies and complete filmographies. Here let me mention a little flaw: these filmographies are also listed in alphabetical order by the title, instead of the more useful chronological order. Be this as it may, this section is a sheer pleasure for every lover of statistics and cataloguing -- and, of course, you can bet I’m among them.

Antonio's Point of View