The first films made in Portugal were by Aurelio da Paz dos Reis, and were screened in Porto, in November of 1896. As is evident by their titles, and as descriptions from those times confirm (since none of them survived), they copied similar films by the Lumiere Brothers and their collaborators.

However, the great adventure of Portuguese cinema begins essentially in the late twenties, when, under the influence of various European vanguards (Soviet, German, French), truly remarkable films appear, mainly documentaries by Leitao de Barros, Jorge Brum do Canto and especially Manoel de Oliveira [Douro, Working on the River (1929), a wonderful visual poem/hymn to the river of his hometown]. Over the next decades, Oliveira will continue his solitary course, with films such as the pre-neorealist Aniki-Bobo (1942), as well as several outstanding documentaries, free of the orders of the fascist dictatorship of Salazar, who, with few changes among his staff, governed Portugal until the "Revolution of the Carnations", in 1974.

During the sixties, a new generation of filmmakers appeared on the scene (Paulo Rocha, Fernando Lopes, Ant?nio de Macedo, et al.), who had studied abroad and were clearly influenced by the French "nouvelle vague". Their films (almost all of which were produced by Antonio de Cunha Telles, a key figure in this first phase), form a new cinema ("novo cinema"), the ranks of which certainly include Manoel de Oliveira, who, at that time, was making the extraordinary film The Passion of Jesus (1963).

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