The begining
The Founders
Beatriz Pacheco Pereira | José Manuel Pereira | Mário Dorminsky
The genesis of the Cooperative Cinema Novo, CRL, a Collective Person of Public Utility, resides in a restricted group of people who were connected by taste to the cinema, establishing their devotion to the Seventh Art through their participation in the film club movement. After this experience, these moviegoers cut themselves off from the film club model, deciding to found a Revista de cinema in 1978, a new project with new editorial characteristics, baptized exactly with the name of Revista Cinema Novo and whose periodic edition took place throughout 12 years.<br>
Mário Dorminsky and Beatriz Pacheco Pereira, the founders, were part of this group of moviegoers, whose home was the headquarters of the magazine, at Rua Diogo Brandão 46, to which collaborators such as José Acácio Castro, José Manuel Pereira (as an illustrator and Fantasporto co-founder), António Reis, Henrique de Barros, Danyel Guerra and others. Right at the launch of this new cultural project, the masterpiece “Intolerância” by D.W.Griffith is displayed at the then Insurance Union of Porto, marking the beginning of the work of this cultural structure that dates back to September 23, 1978.
41 years of Fantasporto
In January 1981, history was made: the 1st International Fantastic Film Festival was held, meaning that the popular Fantasporto was born, then always organized at the end of February, following an international festival calendar, and which has lasted until now. But the year 1981 would not end without the organization of more cycles, with emphasis on the one dedicated to the “Newest North American Cinema” (April) and “François Truffaut” (October), dedicated to the prominent figure of the “Nouvelle Vague” and French cinema.</p>
<p>Part of the work done focused on preserving what Fantasporto and Cinema Novo did, but also in the context of Porto as a film city.</p>
<p>From the beginning, a text and image archive began to be organized, based on the assets of the founders Beatriz Pacheco Pereira and Mário Dorminsky. This archive is organized by directors, actors and actresses and Festivals in a total of around 30,000 dossiers that include pressbooks, clippings from newspaper and magazine articles, movie programs or lobby cards.</p>
<p>There is also an archive of cinema, video and multimedia magazines in general based on large collections of Portuguese and foreign magazines dating back to 1910. This file continues to be made based on Magazines such as the Cahiers du Cinema, Fotograms, Première (Portuguese, French and American), Cahiers de la Cinemateque, Sight and Sound, Directed by ..., Empire, Preview, Neon, Frames, Film Total, etc.</p>
<p>But it didn't stop there. An archive of movie posters, organized by themes and countries, for a total of more than five thousand; a large library of more than 15,000 books and catalogs of cycles and festivals, with particular emphasis on monographic books by directors and cinematographers, as well as reference books (dictionaries and guides); a video library of VCRs, Laser Discs, DVD's and Blu-ray's mainly of classic North American films and European cinema, many of them unpublished in the cinema, even for the emerging collection of films that are sent for selection for the International Festival of Cinema of Porto.