What little is known abroad about the cinema made in Portugal can be reduced to two names: Manuel de Oliveira, who nowadays seems to be celebrated more for the fact that he is 100 years old than for the films he is still making, and Pedro Costa, the new star of art cinema incensed by French critics. Maybe a little place should also be allotted to António Pedro Vasconcelos and his deliberately "commercial" cinema - filmmaking which is well crafted, fast paced, has good scripts and good actors, actually tells a story and even manages to be funny! If only for the sheer audacity of making a portuguese Hollywood style romantic comedy, and actually pulling it off in a very respectable manner ("A Bela e o Paparazzo", his latest movie) António Pedro Vasconcelos would deserve our gratitude. But that's not all: amazingly, his previous films, which always dealt with contemporary themes, actually stand the test of time. So when your hear about "Portuguese cinema" please bear in mind that this is not exactly the same as the cinema made in Portugal.
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