That finger that penetrates the flower in Vale Abraão. Ema, with her exuberant beauty, in the orange grove, as magnetic as a feline. The melancholy in Mastroianni's gaze, perhaps Oliveira's alter-ego, going to the matrix places in Journey to the Beginning of the World. The ghosts, myths and demons of our history in Non, ou a Vã Glória de Mandar. The characters who deal with the anguish of finitude, ageing and frustration. Characters who laugh and mock. The mystery of fertilisation in Benilde.

Manoel de Oliveira's cinematography is crossed by recurring themes, sometimes obsessions.

In the first part of the cycle A Spoken Film (which took place between October 2022 and May 2023), the focus was on cinema's relationship with other arts. This year, we have developed the programme based on these thematic nuclei: Humour, Desire, Impotence, Death, The passing of time, Origin, Women, History, Mystery.

The design of each session remains the same: we start with a presentation by each of the two people present, followed by a screening of the film and, finally, a discussion between the two for 30 / 45 minutes.

Then as now, Oliveira's dialogue is promoted with (and from) the great classics of world cinema, such as Lubitsch, Jean Vigo, Orson Welles or Fellini, a lineage to which Oliveira belongs. Especially for a young audience, the cycle makes it possible to see great classics from the history of cinema on the big screen on a monthly basis until the end of the year.

Conception and moderation: Anabela Mota Ribeiro