Porto on the itinerary for the filming of a documentary about the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance

Regarding to the 650th anniversary of the Treaty of Perpetual Friendships, Unions and Alliances, celebrated on June 16th, the director Martin Dale is directing a documentary, “The Alliance”, which was filmed in Porto.

The film tackles the history and contemporary significance of the diplomatic alliance between Portugal and the United Kingdom, the oldest one in the world, in force to this day, through various testimonies.

Filmed in many Portuguese cities, including places such as Sé do Porto, Feitoria Inglesa and Casa Infante, the film gathers interviews to investigators, specialists, and personalities whose trajectories crossed the two countries.

Martin Dale, who is British and has lived in Portugal for more than 20 years, explains that there is a symbiotic relationship between Portugal and the United Kingdom, and that, sometimes, certain changes in a country have a direct reflexion on the other.

The filmmaker lists many curiosities that attest to this close relationship. “There are interesting things such as, for example, the fact that, between the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 60s, one of the first telecommunication companies in Portugal was The Anglo-Portuguese Telephone Company – which explains the presence, still noticeable in Porto, of British fashioned, red telephone booths”.

“There are also other traces of British heritage, such as the double-decker buses, in the 50s and 60s, or the mail stamps. There were many things in common that I did not know the reason of”, the director adds.

The 50 minutes long documentary is expected to be complete by the end of year.