Porto City Hall to manage Cinema Batalha

The city of Porto has concert halls of rare beauty and elegance. Cinema Batalha is one of such. 

In 1906, the "High-Life Hall" opened in Boavista, and two months later, it was transferred to Cordoaria. The firm "Neves & Pascaud" were then the owners of the Art-Deco style building.

On February 29, 1908 the cinema venue is again transferred to Batalha Square as the "New High-Life Hall", which would give place to the first "Cinema Batalha" in 1913.

Later, in 1944, this first Cinema Batalha was demolished once again and on September 30, 1944, architect Artur Andrade submitted a project to Porto City Hall, for the construction of "Cinema Batalha". The works took place from 1944 to 1947.

As a result of blockbusters globalisation and Shopping Centre Cinema venues, Cinema Batalha lost its glamour of the old days.

Rui Moreira, Mayor of Porto, visited this morning the historic building that will again be put at the service of the cultural production of the city, after years of degradation. 

"It was an old aspiration of the city, an old dream of ours, which will finally be fulfilled. For a long time, there was a sense of loss about this building, which is also a monument. There is a solution now." Said Rui Moreira, at the end of his visit to Cinema Batalha, accompanied by Urban Planning Councilor Manuel Correia Fernandes and architects Alexandre Alves da Costa and Sérgio Fernandez, who will be entrusted with the Batalha recovery project.

The next edition of the Porto. newspaper, published by Porto City Hall, available free of charge and to be hand out to all households of the city next week, reveals that the municipality will recover the historic building and put it at the service of the cultural production of Invicta, after years of neglect. 

The proposal will be submitted to next City Hall Executive Meeting, to be held on Tuesday. 

It is an old aspiration of the people of the city of Porto, to see this landmark building restored and back in business.

It will happen this year, thanks to the signing of a contract that enables the rehabilitation of the building and its cultural promotion and enlivening.

The space will be managed by the municipality in the next 25 years, in the context of the city's cultural programming. The City Hall and the building owners, one of the most important architectural landmarks of Porto, agreed the lease for a monthly fee of 10,000 euros, which will enable the conditions for promoting cinema linked project, based on the values of memory, knowledge and innovation.

The project, designated "Cinema Batalha" will have as main strategic axes the knowledge about the History of Cinema through regular sessions of Film Archive, both in analogue and digital formats, the dissemination of contemporary communications in the area of Cinema that are not found in the commercial circuit and in the existing festivals, the support to programmers and distributors to presenting new cinematography and new debates in the field of Cinema and Motion Picture. 

The strategy is also to support research in the field of the history of Cinema and to promote Critical Thinking about Moving Image and other arts, especially the visual arts. 

Rui Moreira reaffirmed the intention to "promote all necessary work to promote cinema, especially through an active collaboration with Cinemateca, which is also an old claim of the city of Porto. Let's now develop the project."

The famous building, which has long been abandoned, is considered fundamental both from a cultural and socio-economic points of view. Its rehabilitation and use will be vital to the social and commercial prosperity of the entire Praça da Batalha and adjacent streets, as is the case of Rua 31 de janeiro.

With the development of this new project, Porto City Hall will be able to complement the city's cultural activity, in the performing arts field.

The rehabilitation of Cinema Batalha also consolidates the strategy to return cinema to Porto downtown again. This is done in conjunction with the enlivenment of cinema and concert venues such as Trindade, Passos Manuel and Isabel Alves Costa Auditoriums in Rivoli.