JAIME

António Reis

Antonio Reis was born in Valadares on 27th August 1927. After attending high school in Porto, he began an intense self-training course in fine arts (painting and sculpture). He took part in an experiment involving popularization and cultural animation in the backstreets of Porto in collaboration with the Escola Superior de Belas Artes. During the fifties he was an active cine-club goer attending the Cineclub do Porto/Clube Portugues de Cinematografia where he increased his film-making knowledge. At the beginning of the sixties he dedicated himself to cinema, ethnology and poetry. In 1959 he worked on the making of Auto da Floripes by Lopes Fernandes, an independent production classified under the Experimental Cinema of the Porto Cineclub section. In 1961-62 he became assistant director to Manoel de Oliveira in Acto da Primavera. The next year he made his debut as a director in Paineis no Porto (1963) and Do Rio ao Ceu (1964) which he directed with César Guerra Leal. In 1966 he wrote the dialogue for Mudar de Vida (1966) Paulo Rocha's second feature film. He wrote for the magazines "Vertice" and "Noticias do Bloqueio" and the dailies "O Comércio do Porto" and "Jornal de Noticias". He has also published various collections of poetry: Poemas Quotidianos (1957), Novos Poemas Quotidianos (1960) and Poemas Quotidianos (1967), in the "Poetas de Hoja" collection. From 1977 to 1991 he taught "film space" at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema do Conservatorio Nacional de Lisbona. In 1973, backed by the Centro Portugues de Cinema, he directed his first film Jaime, with Margarida Cordeiro as sound and editing assistant. Starting with Jaime, Cordeiro co-directed all the films by Antonio Reis, resulting in highly individual and creative team work. Three aesthetically dazzling films were the result of this partnership from their slow gestation, secret and personal as only poetry can be: Tras-os-Montes (1976), Ana (1982) and Rosa de Areia (1989), links composing the evolutionary chain of a unique film universe which was suddenly broken by Antonio Reis's death in Lisbon on 10th September 1991.

FILMOGRAFIA

Painéis do Porto (di A. Reis, cm, 1963), Do Rio ao Céu (co-regia César Guerra Leal, A. Reis, cm, 1964), Jaime (di A. Reis, cm, 1974), Trás-os-Montes (di A. Reis e M. Cordeiro, 1976), Ana (di A. Reis e M. Cordeiro ,1982), Rosa de Areia (di A. Reis e M. Cordeiro, 1989).