Manoel de Oliveira as a photographer is on the spotlight in Serralves

'Manoel de Oliveira Fotógrafo' is the theme of the exhibit that inaugurates this 23rd October at the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, in Serralves, unveiling a somewhat unknown facet of the renowned Portuguese film director. The exhibition also features a cinema cycle, a conferences programme and a catalogue. 

Manoel de Oliveira is worldly known by his cinematic masterpieces, but his life also revolved around other interests, such as photography, to which the film director resorted for decades "as an instrument of formal research and experimentation to "building his own visual language" in his films, as described by the Serralves Foundation in a Press Release.

The exhibit opens on 23rd October, at Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, where over 100 photographs will be spread to convey Manoel de Oliveira's approach to this art form. Most photos are unpublished and were taken between 1930 and 1950.

These same photographs were kept in the filmmaker's personal archive for many decades, and "they are a great surprise", as the Serralves Foundation states. All the acquis by Manoel de Oliveira is kept in this institution.

This is the opportunity to have a different take at the work by Manoel de Oliveira and his films, and they will help understand the time the director took to himself the role of director of photography in his films, which corresponds to a period of 10 years.

'Manoel de Oliveira Fotógrafo' is curated by António Preto, director of the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, and it can be visited until 18th April. Tickets cost 12€.