Between 2 and 31 March, the Portuguese Cinematheque will host the cycle Lisbon, Capital of International Intrigue, curated by Rui Lopes. The cycle shows how Lisbon was a recurring presence in thrillers about espionage, criminal networks and other types of conspiracy.

The inclusion of the Portuguese capital in a subgenre of thriller films, centred on espionage plots, criminal networks and other types of international intrigue, is a lesser-known facet of Lisbon’s many connections to cinema — and has been the subject of study by Rui Lopes. In the 20 films selected for this cycle, Lisbon ‘appears sometimes as the central stage and sometimes as a passing backdrop, attracting fictional spies and real filmmakers, albeit usually in the form of far-fetched and openly artificial plots, from big productions to B movies.’ The films ‘span much of the 20th century, originating in the USA, Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Soviet Union, revealing in their diversity a cinematic continuity, with recurring situations, characters and locations, from Terreiro do Paço to São Jorge Castle.’

The film Lisbon, by Ray Milland (United States, 1956 – 91 min) has been selected for the opening session of the cycle, scheduled for the late afternoon of 2 March, with the participation of Rui Lopes. Starring Ray Milland himself, Maureen O’Hara, Yvonne Furneaux and Claude Rains, it recounts the adventure of an American smuggler based in Lisbon who is hired to rescue a wealthy industrialist behind the Iron Curtain. That evening, at 9:30 p.m., António de Macedo’s Seven Bullets for Selma (Portugal, 1967 – 108 min) will also be screened — one of two Portuguese films included in the cycle, which depicts the capital through the prism of super-spy adventures.

In conjunction with the film screenings, the cycle also includes a series of parallel activities in different locations around the city:

• 6 March, at Casa do Comum, at 6 pm: Dinâmicas Culturais Transnacionais: Cultura e luta entre duas capitais [Transnational Cultural Dynamics: Culture and struggle between two capitals], a conversation about Paris and resistance to the Estado Novo, with Luís Trindade, Víctor Barros and Victor Pereira; organised in collaboration with the Institut Français;
• 7 March, at the Cinematheque, at 4 pm: Olhares sobre Lisboa, Capital do Cinema de Intriga Internacional [Perspectives on Lisbon, Capital of International Intrigue Cinema], a round table on the relationship between Lisbon, cinema, espionage and tourism, with Rui Lopes, Inês Sapeta Dias, Sofia Sampaio and Richard Rhys Davies;
• 10 March, at the Goethe Institut, at 6.30 pm: Encontros clandestinos na capital da espionagem: As relações luso-alemãs em Lisboa entre as décadas de 1940 e 1970 [Clandestine Encounters in the Capital of Espionage: Portuguese-German relations in Lisbon between the 1940s and 1970s], a conversation about moments of secrecy in Portuguese-German relations, from diplomacy to theatre and literature, with Fernando Clara, Vera San Payo de Lemos, Jürgen Bock and Manuela Ribeiro Sanches; organised in collaboration with the Goethe Institut Lissabon;
• 11 March, at the Instituto Cervantes, at 6 p.m.: Lisboa, Madrid, Europa [Lisbon, Madrid, Europe], a conversation about the context of desarrollismo in Franco’s Spain and its cinematic imagery, with Ana Algara, Manuel Loff, Rúben Pérez Trujillano and Rita Luís; organised in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes of Lisbon.
• 17 March, at FLAD, at 5.30 pm: Between Culture and Diplomacy: US/Portugal relations in the 1940s-70s, a workshop on the cultural diplomacy of the Estado Novo in its relationship with the United States of America, with Frédéric Vidal, Miguel Moniz, Sara Antunes, Annarita Gori and Rui Lopes; also includes the screening of the documentary Adventures in the Empire: a mistold story (Rui Lopes, 2024); organised in collaboration with FLAD, the Luso-American Development Foundation.
• 13 and 21 March, at 5 pm: two guided tours, with João Rosmaninho and Rui Lopes, respectively, of the locations where the films in the cycle were shot and set, meeting and departing from Santo Estêvão Square.

The cycle will also have a ‘epilogue’, with a final conference to be held on 20 May at the Italian Cultural Institute in Lisbon. Under the title Decifrar o século XX entre Itália e Portugal [Deciphering the 20th century between Italy and Portugal], it will revisit the themes of the cycle, highlighting points of contact between the history and culture of Portugal and Italy, from cinema to political activism.

This set of initiatives is the result of a collaboration between the Portuguese Cinematheque, the Institute of Contemporary History and the ExPORT project (based at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon), with support from the Luso-American Development Foundation, the Italian Cultural Institute in Lisbon, the French Institute in Portugal, the Cervantes Institute of Lisbon and the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The full programme can be found at this link (PDF, in Portuguese).