Caminhos do Cinema Português

This sunday ended the Portuguese Film Festival „Caminhos do Cinema Português“ which turns our beautiful host city into the capital of Portuguese cinema, every year around this time.

The CCP is not only a great opportunity for young and upcoming Portuguese cineasts to reach a larger audience, it's also the only festival that has its focus on Portuguese cinema, compared to Lisboa&Estoril festival, eg, where fewer Portuguese and more international movies are displayed. With only one exception at CCP, the section „Cinema mundial“ where a guest country is chosen and movies that are linked to the evolution of Portuguese cinema are shown. This year, the guest country was Ireland.

But the CCP has a lot more sections, well, first of all, there's the „Seccao competitiva“, where all competing movies are shown, from short short films to long „normal“ movies. They can be documentaries or fictional stories or even trying to mix genres as „A ultima vez que vi Macau“ was this year. The prizes are distributed by a jury made up from cultural experts that have gained their expertise in various fields, there are anthropologists, directos, actors,... and many more professions and there are also special prizes like the audience's favourite movie, where you could cast a vote after each movie you'd seen.

Then there's the „Ensaios visuais“ section where students from schools and universities in Portugal have the possibility to subscribe their movies and get chosen, which helps developing a really active scene for young cinema here.

Just another fact, nearly every famous or less famous Portuguese director has been present with at least one movie at CCP which ran its 19^th edition this year. Quite impressive, huh?

And there's also a special programm for kids, with adequate films and animations that lead them towards the 6^th art using baby steps and thereby gradually creates a conscient audience that understands cinema as communication and a starting point for social and cultural discussions.

Social and cultural discussions have been a huge topic this edition, not only because the festival had been on quite a financial shortage caused by the crisis but also, the enlightening „Master's sessions“ that featured directors and other experts on different topics in public debates. They had various topics from the links between cinema and literature up to erotics in portuguese cinema. And of course, the linked movies where shown to give an insight and a possibilities for spectators to get their own ideas and maybe discuss them on their own or by asking questions to the present professionals.

And, what topped this program was actually the art exhibitions, maybe you've seen the cinema posters at the academic museum, or the „rolleux du cinema“ at TAGV where miniature scenes linked to Coimbra and/or cinema where cut out of paper and glued into empty rolls of toilet paper. Definitely a creative and cute way to combine art and cinema.

Some of you might even have wondered why I said that the cinema finished on sunday, as the program said 17^th. This was also due to the huge uproar Portugal's currently in, because exactly one week ago, on the greve geral, TAGV stayed closed in solidarity to all the other demonstrating workers. Positively speaking we had the luck to enjoy CCP one day longer than previsted!

Check out their Facebook page or the official homepage to discover the winners and more information:

https://www.facebook.com/caminhoscinema

http://www.caminhos.info/