''Douro, Faina Fluvial'' (Labor on the Douro River) is a 1931

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

documentary short film. It was the first film directed by

Manoel de Oliveira Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira (; 11 December 1908 – 2 April 2015) was a Portuguese film director and screenwriter born in Cedofeita, Porto. He first began making films in 1927, when he and some friends attempted to make a film about Wo ...

and is a portrait of his hometown of

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

and the labor and industry that takes place along the city's main river, the

Douro River The Douro (, , ; es, Duero ; la, Durius) is the highest-flow river of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province, central Spain, meanders south briefly then flows generally west through the north-west part of ...

. It was first shown at the International Congress of Film Critics in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

on 19 September 1931, where the majority of the

audience booed. However, other foreign critics and artists who were in attendance praised the film, such as

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

and

Émile Vuillermoz Émile-Jean-Joseph Vuillermoz (23 May 1878 – 2 March 1960) was a French critic in the areas of music, film, drama and literature. He was also a composer, but abandoned this for criticism. Early life Émile Vuillermoz was born in Lyon in 1878. He ...

. Oliveira re-edited the film with a new

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

and re-released it in 1934. Again in 1994, Oliveira modified the film by adding a new, more

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

soundtrack by

Luís de Freitas Branco Luís Maria da Costa de Freitas Branco (12 October 1890 – 27 November 1955) was a Portuguese composer, musicologist, and professor of music who played a pre-eminent part in the development of Portuguese music in the first half of the 20th centur ...

. Oliveira was influenced by German filmmaker

Walther Ruttmann Walter Ruttmann (28 December 1887 – 15 July 1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for dire ...

's documentary '' Berlin: Symphony of a City'', and ''Douro, Faina Fluvial'' was made in the same genre of city symphony films.Johnson. p. 6.

References

External links

* 1931 documentary films 1931 films Black-and-white documentary films Portuguese black-and-white films Films directed by Manoel de Oliveira Portuguese silent films Documentary films about cities Portuguese short documentary films 1930s short documentary films {{short-silent-documentary-film-stub