The Evolution of Portuguese Cinema Press

From Dictatorship to the First Years of Democracy

Abstract

Studies about Film Journalism (a sub-genre of Cultural Journalism) are practically nonexistent in Portugal and with cinema being one of the most present artistic manifestations in portuguese press (as according to the data of the research project Cultura na Primeira Página[Baptista, 2014; 2017a; 2017b]), it is important to deepen the study of this sub-genre of Cultural Journalism.

From a historical perspective, the relation between cinema and journalism is almost as ancient as the seventh art. According to Barroso (2008: p. 23), "since the beginnings of cinema that have gradually begun to impose a cinematographic culture inconceivable without the existence of texts that speak of films and readers interested in movies". In Portugal, the first magazine devoted exclusively to cinema emerged in the decade of 1910 and, from that point on, cinema magazines have accompanied the implementation of cinema in the life of Portuguese people and the edification of Portuguese cinema thrived. It’s after the second half of the 20th century that we began to find “an acceleration of the cinematographic taste” (Barroso, 2008:26) and a consolidation of cinema magazines in Portugal.

In this article, we focus in the timeframe from the 50s to the 80s and, through the reviewing of literature and content analysis of the main cinema magazines, we look to outline the evolution of the press concerning cinema in Portugal complying with the history of portuguese cinema and the context from where magazines came from and where they circulated.