«A centre at the margin»: Portuguese cinema

Abstract

This article argues for the notion that cinema's special links to the local have a national dimension. This has to be understood in its subjective sense first of all, but at the same time is part of a specific mechanism of production and reception. From the outset, cinema (art or industry, art and industry) has been characterized by its national or international roots (works, human resources, capital). The article analyses this paradox using Portuguese cinema as its point of reference, as an example of the intentional construction, over a period of over thirty years, of a national cinematographic exception: the artist-filmmakers of a small country, with no cinematographic industry, have survived and, at the same time, have been obliged to submit in part to the European model as far as production and labour are concerned.