Conversation with José Manuel Costa

The history of the Cinemateca Portuguesa owes a lot to the three men who headed the institution in the 20th century: Manuel Félix Ribeiro (1906-1982, founder and member of the first generations of film archivists), Luis de Pina (1931-1991, who established solid international links and continued to develop ties with the Portuguese film community), and João Bénard da Costa (1935-2009), clearly the main force behind the archive’s extraordinary development during the Eighties and Nineties. Taking advantage of the new opportunities offered by the institute’s independence conquered in the early Eighties, but also out of an outstanding dynamism and personal status, João Bénard indeed took the Cinemateca to another level, making it one of the most influential cultural institutions in the country and an important player on the European scene. He did so first and foremost as Director-Programmer and later through other public roles (including his work at the C. Gulbenkian Foundation, as a teacher, writer, television presenter and cultural commentator). He made a powerful impact on the Portuguese cultural scene and is commonly regarded as one of the country’s greatest intellectuals of the late 20th and early 21st century.

José Manuel Costa