Douro, Faina Fluvial

Douro, Faina Fluvial (Labor on the Douro River) is a 1931 Portuguese documentary short film. It was the first film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and is a portrait of his hometown of Porto and the labor and industry that takes place along the cities main river, the Douro River.^[1] The film was first shown at the International Congress of Film Critics in Lisbon on September 19, 1931, where the majority of the Portugese audience booed the film. However other foreign critics and artists who were in attendance praised the film, such as Luigi Pirandello and Emile Vuillermoz.^[2] Oliveira re-edited the film with a new soundtrack and re-released it in 1934. And again in 1994, Oliveira modified the film by adding a new, more avant-garde soundtrack by Freitas Branco.^[3]

Oliveira was influenced by German filmmaker Walther Ruttmann's documentary Berlin: Symphony of a City, and Douro, Faina Fluvial was made in the same genre of city symphony films.^[4]

References

External links

• Douro, Faina Fluvial at the Internet Movie Database