António Lopes Ribeiro

Directing·Apr 16, 1908·Lisbon, Portugal

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Director, journalist, and producer, António Lopes Ribeiro (1908-1995) was a central name in the history of Portuguese cinema in the first half of the 20th century. Movie critic since the late 1920s, he supported the European cinematographic avant-gardes and the aesthetical and technical renewal of Portuguese cinema. He directed his first film, Bailando ao sol, in 1928 and took part in the shooting of J. Leitão de Barros film’s Nazaré, praia de pescadores (1929), Lisboa, Crónica Anedótica and Maria do Mar (1930). Shortly before that, he undertook a long journey to the great movie studios of Paris, Berlin and Moscow, where he became up to speed with the most recent techniques and tendencies, and where he also met Clair, Renoir, Lang, Pabst, Eisenstein and Vertov. His first sound film was Gado Bravo (1934), made with several Jewish film actors and technicians that had just escaped from Hitler’s Germany. Ribeiro’s first big propaganda film for the New State was A Revolução de Maio (The May Revolution, 1937), whose script he wrote with António Ferro, the founder and director of the Secretariado da Propaganda Nacional (National Propaganda Office/SPN). The following year, he accompanied the head of the state, President Óscar Carmona, in a trip to the Portuguese colonies in Africa, shooting topical footage that would be used in several documentaries, as well as in his second propaganda feature film, Feitiço do Império (1940). Also in 1938, Ribeiro began producing for SPN the New State’s first newsreel, Jornal Português, which would last until 1951. With his production and distribution company Sociedade Portuguesa de Actualidades Cinematográficas (SPAC), he produced and directed many propaganda documentaries commissioned by the New State, thus earning the reputation of the regime’s official filmmaker and reinforcing his influence in the State-sponsored Sindicato Nacional dos Profissionais de Cinema (National Union of Cinema Professionals). In 1941, he founded Produções António Lopes Ribeiro, a production company that released famous comedies such as O Pai Tirano (1941), O Pátio das Cantigas (1942, directed by his brother, Francisco Ribeiro), or A Vizinha do Lado (1945); Manoel de Oliveira’s first feature film, Aniki-Bóbó (1942); or historical dramas such as Amor de Perdição (1943), Frei Luis de Sousa (1950) and O Primo Basílio (1959). Until 1974, Ribeiro produced or directed dozens of propaganda documentaries and newsreels. Between 1957 and 1974 he was also the author and host of a very popular TV show about the history of cinema titled “O Museu do Cinema” (“The Cinema Museum”).

Film	Credit
Lusitanian Illusion2010 · Self (archive footage)	Self (archive footage)
António Silva - Um Artista Popular1998 · Actor	Actor
OO Carro da Estrela1989 · Actor	Actor
O Primo Basílio1959 · Director, Screenplay	Director, Screenplay
FFaina do Rio e do Mar1959 · Director	Director
TThe Presidential Journey to Brazil1957 · Director	Director
30 years with Salazar1957 · Director	Director
As Rodas de Lisboa1951 · Director	Director
Frei Luís de Sousa1950 · Screenplay, Director	Screenplay, Director
Lisboa de Hoje e de Amanhã1948 · Narrator, Director, Writer	Narrator, Director, Writer
OO Cortejo Histórico de Lisboa1947 · Director	Director
Camões1946 · Writer, Producer	Writer, Producer
GGuinea-Bissau, Cradle of the Empire1946 · Director	Director
The Girl Next Door1945 · Director, Screenplay	Director, Screenplay
The People We Civilized1944 · Director	Director
Doomed Love1943 · Director	Director
Aniki-Bóbó1942 · Producer	Producer
The Courtyard of the Ballads1942 · Writer, Producer	Writer, Producer
The Tyrannical Father1941 · Producer, Director, Writer	Producer, Director, Writer
The Spell of the Empire1940 · Writer, Director	Writer, Director
A Revolução de Maio1937 · Writer, Director	Writer, Director
Gado Bravo1934 · Director	Director
Maria of the Sea1930 · Screenplay	Screenplay