Fantasporto

In the last three decades, Fantasporto brought to Portugal for the first time the films of such names as David Cronenberg, André Tarkovsky, Brian de Palma, John Carpenter, Alain Resnais, David Lynch, Pedro Almodovar, Andrzej Zulawski, Ridley Scott, Luc Besson, Peter Greenaway, Neil Jordan, Jean-Jacques Beneix, Joel and Ethan Cohen, Sam Raimi, Brian Yuzna, Peter Jackson, Hal Hartley, Anthony Minghella, Quentin Tarantino, Roberto Rodriguez, Danny Boyle, Paul Anderson, David Fincher, James Mangold, the Wachowski Brothers, Scott Hicks, Scott Reynolds and the Dutch director and Oscar winner Mike Van Diem, among many others.

Situated in the west corner of Europe, the World Heritage City of Porto hosts a one of a kind film festival. Founded 30 years ago by a group of film fans and critics, Fantasporto, as it is known, started as a haven for sci-fi and fantasy films , a then not too well seen genre. After a huge sucesss in the first two years, the festival has broaden its horizons with thrillers and seven years later with a New Directors competition. Although fantasy is still its trade mark, especially for the Portuguese press, it recognized as the biggest in Portugal and one of the most important in Europe.

Giving space to big screen productions, to autheur films and to experimental projects from all over the world, Fantasporto has created enthusiastic audiences, ranging from cinephiles to more popular spectators, with an annual average of 110,000 film goers. In its 27th edition in February the festival reached 104,000 people and 5,000 media references (both national and international) with a record of 187 hours of TV time. Present in Oporto were circa 100 members of the foreign press and about 250 Portuguese journalists and media representatives.

In spite of being organized by a private entity, the event is mostly State funded, with the Ministry of Culture leading and the President of the Republic as head of the Honour Committee, and with private sponsors backing strongly, responding to the festival?s crowd appeal

The guests are mostly representative of the films in competition (126 in 2007), having increased in number over the years due mostly to word of mouth. They are lodged in 5 star hotels and enjoy a full programme of tours in a city that is the European Capital of Culture this year.

The films arrive from both from major companies such as Warner, Columbia, UIP or Fox, producers as Miramax, New Line or Summit and from top companies all over the world. The festival is fertile ground for the discovery of new cinematographies, for "sneak previews" or for launching "difficult" films like "Bullworth" or "Scream 3" (European premières). Distributors also frequently test the possible theatrical impact of their new films in Fantasporto as it was the case with "South Park" (Warner), Heaven" and "Dogma ( both Miramax) or "Bats" (Columbia). The Fantas awards are usually used in the promotion in the national market.

The success of Fantasporto is also measurable by the increasing number of offers coming directly from the producers, with United Artists and Columbia sending directly their films in the latest edition which opened with "Audition" , and closed with Nick Hurran "Plots With a View" and Sonderberg´s "Solaris".

Not really an organised market, still deals are made, or new productions (mostly European) are agreed upon in the festival restaurants or in the Rivoli Theatre lobbies, the heart of Fantasporto, a beautiful renewed cinema of the 40's, right in the commercial centre of the city, with the Atlantic Ocean, the River Douro and the port wine cellars close by.

The organizers, the Cooperativa Cinema Novo, has been writing, programming and promoting films as well as publishing books since 1978. In recent years they have also become involved in the acquisition of theatrical and video rights for Portugal. The process started with Peter Jackson?s "Braindead", Fantasporto Best Film Award in 83, and went on with Jane Campion?s"An Angel at My Table", Tobe Hooper"Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or most recently Veit Helmer?s "Tuvalu" among others.

The Cinema Novo Collection is going on 100 titles, the great majority already with theatrical release, exploiting a niche which has remained untouched by national distributors, and thus increasing the diversity in Portuguese screens as the multiplex AMC Cinemas have understood and given support.

Oporto is European Capital of Culture and Fantasporto festival was the opening event. Also in a near future is the creation by Cinema Novo of a 4 screen multiplex which will be complemented with the rental of other cinemas in the Lisbon area, providing more space for the release of their films.

It is always pleasant to remember the birth and the development of the Oporto International Film Festival, since its launching in 1981, still as a non-competitive event, till adulthood in the 1993 edition.

Considered by the professional international magazine "Variety"as one of the 60 top film festivals of the world, and the best as far as the fantasy genre is considered, Fantasporto has become the most talked about film and culture event in Portugal.

Since the very beginning, Fantasporto had as goal the creation of a dynamic forum of all arts, with a strong tendency to show the best of fantasy films and the diversity of the film world.

The Festival has also tried to bring to its programme a group of sidebars as art exhibitions,theatre plays, puppet presentations, lectures, seminars, poster competitions, comics and amateur film-making, as well as the publishing of several film related material.

It was this combination of several art forms which gave Fantasporto the appeal it still has today, at the top of all film festivities in Portugal, gathering an enthusiastic crowd and the support of official and governmental authorities, local entities and private companies.

Through these 30 years we have presented in competition over 5.000 films (new feature length and shorts), never released theatrically in Portugal.

Enlarging the number of film addicts, the festival prepares each year special programmes for children , handicapped citizens and schools.

We brought to Portugal, in an obvious promotion of national tourism an important group of film-makers, producers, actors, screenplay writers, film critics and journalists.

Dany Boyle, Brian Yuzna, Elias Mehrige, Julian Temple, Bill Plympton, Júlio Bressane, Richard Elfman, David Lynch, Ben Kinskey, Mariano Baino, Robert Golden, Ray Brady, Luc Besson, Karel Zeman, Andrzej Zulawski, Francis Leroi, Wolf Gremm, Carl Schenkel, René Laloux, Mansur Madavi, Monique Enckell, Oldrich Lipsky, Harry Kumel, Vicente Aranda, Juan Luis Bunuel, Roy Ward Baker, Ivan Cardoso, Piotr Szulkin, Mike Hodges, Jesus Garay, Alex Cox, Carlos Saura, Rauol Servais, André Delvaux, Pim by la Parra, George Sluizer, Imanol Uribe, Jean Claude Carrière, Serguei Paradjanov, Danny Elfman, not forgetting the presence of the Portuguese film-makers such as António Macedo, Victor Silva, Ana Luisa Guimarães, Cristina Hauser ou Margarida Gil, Fernando Vendrell, Fernando Lopes, Joaquim Leitão, Tino Navarro, Paulo Branco, Manuel Costa e Silva, in atotal of 2,400 guests who have honoured us with their presence.

The promotion of European and Portuguese films was permanent as a counterpoint to the north- american film industry.

Recently the Teatro Municipal Rivoli has become the centre of the Festival.

We have created and consolidated to our guests the trade mark of sympathy and warm welcoming, together with an accurate and competent organization which makes the difference between us and some other festivals.

The final results for these three decades of Cinema  is clear to all and proved by the big press dossiers that we have been collecting through the years. We became a big ( in Portugal ) Film Festival, with a significant projection on the production companies and international organisms, without loosing the charactheritics of the informal but priveliged treatement through the guests, the nacional and international media and through a large amount of audience who has been always with us, helping us growing.

We are proud of having contributed  to the international projection of the town, the region and the country promoting the cinema and above all, returning to the spectators the will and joy of watching movies.