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Mário Ventura, José Vieira Marques
Two Portuguese Film Festival Directors Died Within a Few Weeks
By João Antunes

Mário Ventura, director of Festróia, the International Film Festival of Setúbal, the first in Portugal to have a permanent FIPRESCI jury, and José Vieira Marques, director of the former Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, died within a short period, leaving the Portuguese film culture and culture in general in a poorer situation.

Mário Ventura, a well known writer, was capable of mounting an international event in a region with a huge social and economical crisis. His first novel came out in 1963. He published one and a half dozens of books, mainly neo-realist novels, collecting some important literary prizes in the country. He belonged to the editorial group of the magazine "Seara Nova" and founded the weekly "Extra". For almost a decade, he was the Spanish correspondent of the daily "Jornal de Notícias". He was president of the National Association of Writers and the Journalist's Syndicate.

José Vieira Marques, who abandoned a life as a catholic priest, had the courage to defy the extreme right and censorial regime, establishing a film week before the Revolution of 1974, and then a competitive film festival which formed a generation of film viewers and film makers. He was a man of an enormous culture and humanist formation, he was a constant presence in film festivals like Cannes (he served on the Camera d'Or jury in 1985) or Berlin, always trying to pick the best movies for his own festival. Spending part of the year abroad, he taught history of cinema and film analysis in the Oporto Politechnic Institute, and he was preparing a book on th history of cinema.

Born in Lisbon, in 1936, Mário Ventura was already in hospital during the recent 22nd Festróia. He just completed his 70th anniversary on the 24th of May, a few days before this year's festival (June 2 to 11), and died on June 16th. In 1984, the well known journalist and novelist founded the Festroia Film Festival, in the peninsula of Tróia, some 50 kilometers south of Lisbon, with an original and courageous approach in terms of competition: the films had to be produced in countries with less than a certain number of features a year (varying between 20 to 30), thus giving the viewers the chance to see movies from cinematographies usually excluded from the commercial circuit. Already an event in the year's cultural and film life, in 1965 the festival moved to Setúbal, the capital of the district, on the other side of the river, allowing the organization to grow and collect a different kind of institutional support, and at the same time seducing the citizens of one of Portugal's most important cities. In the last few years credited as president of the festival, he leaves a short but well mounted team, lead by the festival director Fernanda Silva, recently appointed a member of the European Film Academy. Showing that it's going to continue Màrio Ventura's dream, the festival announced already the dates of next edition: June 1-10 in 2007.

A couple of weeks later, on the 4th of July, José Vieira Marques died. He was born 72 years before in Vila Franca de Xira, a small village near Lisbon. He died in Setúbal, the hometown of Fostoria, but he was the soul of the Film Festival of Figueira da Foz Film. Established in 1972, it had the 31st and last edition in 2002. The lack of support, a strong competition from a lot of new festivals and some internal organizational problems let this event to finish its life, leaving behind an extremely important heritage. Formed curiously in the hometown of filmmakers like João César Monteiro and João Mário Grilo, the film festival gathered there, specially in its first decade, the whole national film community — the directors had a kind of agreement to premiere their movies in this festival, journalists could see not only the last Portuguese movies but also the latest works of the most important authors of the time, or the first works of talented new filmmakers. And a group of young boys and girls had the chance to almost literally live side by side with well known directors frequently in town. Barely 20, the author of this lines remembers a huge debate and a following lunch with his university film club colleagues and Chantal Akerman, a very sweet dinner with Agnès Varda and an interview (followed by a dinner in Lisbon a few days later) with an also young Jim Jarmush, who presented his first 16-mm movie, Permanent Vacation. José Vieira Marques and his festival are not with us anymore. But all the people who knew them will always remember them.

João Antunes
© FIPRESCI 2006

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