Canção de Lisboa (1933)

About

A Canção de Lisboa, directed by Cottinelli Telmo in 1933, was the first Portuguese sound film and is today one of the classics of national cinema. It is a musical comedy with a script by the director himself and dialogue and poems by José Galhardo. Vasco Leitão, played by Vasco Santana, studies Medicine in Lisbon and lives on a stipend from some aunts from Trás-os-Montes, who have never visited the capital and judge him to be an exemplary student. The reality is different: he fails, loses the aunts' confidence and sees his fiancée become angry. It is in the fado retreat, where he even criticizes traditional fado, that the story takes a turn, with music serving as both salvation and a source of laughter. The screening brings back 1930s Lisbon, Vasco Santana's humour and an idea that the film defends throughout: that of facing problems with a smile.