A cidade como campo de significados: Manoel de Oliveira e o Porto em Douro Faina Fluvial (1931) e Porto da Minha Infância (2001)

No ano da morte do mais importante cineasta português dIn the year of the departure of the most important Portuguese filmmaker of all times, we intend with this paper to analyse two films of Manoel de Oliveira that use Porto as a thematic setting and that incorporate very specific meanings to the director’s hometown: “Douro Faina Fluvial” (1931) and “Porto da Minha Infância” (2001). Both documentaries give big importance to Porto as a meaningful and significant place, where the actions that take place relate themselves not only with a characterization of the city, but where the city also characterizes both what is represented and the author behind that representation. In the game between the setting of Porto and the characters and actions that exist and happen within it, we will analyse how these two films from Manoel de Oliveira (separated by 70 years) bring interesting contrasts between different scopes: the connexions between past and present, the conflicts between contemporaneity and memory, the bridges between reality and fiction, or even the intimate, cultural and anthropological ramifications of a personal, creative and filmic perspective on a city.