With a view to offer to the Croatian public an insight on a cinematography that is increasingly earning international appraise, the Embassy of Portugal in Zagreb and the Croatian Film Clubs´ Association have organized the first Contemporary Portuguese Film Festival, a project which we both hope will be crowned with success and followed up in the near future with additional sequences.



Designed as a first glance, the programme consists of seven long features, sprawling from 1997 to 2004, and displays a variety of genres and themes, with action taking place both in Portugal and in countries with which it has strong historic and cultural ties. Multiculturalism is thus a key element of the Festival, a reflection in itself of Portuguese culture and way of being, shaped through centuries of contacts between different civilizations and regions of the world.



With the presence of Director Francisco Manso, the programme will open with “The Testament of Mr. Napumoceno”, a touching and witty account of the life of a prosperous man, set in the beautiful archipelago of Cape Vert, and featuring a brief appearance by world music diva Cesaria Évora. “Nha Fala” and “The Jungle” are two other films with strong international ties, the first in the style of a musical comedy from Guiné Bissau director Flora Gomes and the second dealing with the enigmatic and majestic Brazilian Amazon jungle. “Xavier”, “The Immortals” and “Maria and the others” form the bulk of the more European perspective and bear witness to different styles of current Portuguese film making. The cycle closes with “The Coast of Murmurs”, based on the novel by Lídia Jorge, and takes us to Mozambique in Africa, in the period of the colonial war, showing us a more psychological and introspective angle of human beings during armed conflicts.



Besides the exhibition of the above mentioned films, the Festival will be enriched by a “workshop” on Portuguese Cinema with the participation of Alberto Seixas Santos, critic, professor and renowned director, as well as Francisco Manso.



To close, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Croatian Film Clubs´ Association for turning this project into a reality and to invite all interested viewers to share with us a different and hopefully gratifying experience during the Portuguese Film Week in Kino Tuskanac.



(Luís Barreiros, Ambassador of Portugal)