Missão

Batalha Centro de Cinema’s mission is to promote cultural knowledge and engagement through film and the moving image. Our programme includes retrospectives and themed cycles, with a focus on contemporary practices and the connections between film and other arts. Central to our activities is our wish to nurture film culture, via education, publishing, training, and debate. 

As well as putting forward new ways of making and thinking about film, in particular by Portuguese artists and filmmakers, we aim to celebrate cinema in all of its complexity and historical diversity, in an open dialogue with all audiences.


História

Regular film screenings in Porto began in the summer of 1906 at Salão high-Life, a shed in the S. Miguel Fair, located where today we can find the Boavista roundabout. This project was initiated by Manuel da Silva Neves and Edmond Pascaud — who would later found Neves & Pascaud, a beacon-company in the film history of the city — and also featured as proprietor and manager Luís Neves Real, mathematician and teacher, who founded Cineclube do Porto and was a film critic. Salão High-Life, having gathered in its audience people from all walks of life, and functioned at the S. Miguel Fair for only two months before moving to Jardim da Cordoaria. On the 20th of February of 1908, under the name of Novo Salão High-Life, it moved permanently to Praça da Batalha.

Cinema Batalha, as it was known then, started to assume its familiar shape in the 1940s. The building housing Novo Salão High Life was demolished to give way to the new cinema, projected by the architect Artur Andrade. This master work was, at the time, described as possessing a “radical modernity”. It comprised two theater rooms (one seating 950 people, the other 135), two bars and a restaurant with a terrace.

Artur Andrade’s project was complemented with works by Júlio Pomar — a fresco in one of the foyers — and by Américo Braga — a bas-relief in the side façade, facing Praça da Batalha. Both would be object of censorship by the Estado Novo regime, who covered up the fresco and removed a sickle and hammer carved in the bas-relief.

In the year 2000, Batalha shut its doors for the first time, mostly due to the competition with large commercial surfaces which, at the time, offered the same kind of programming. The degradation of the building worsened, until in 2006 it was rented by Comércio Vivo for a period of four years. When this period elapsed, it ceased activity again.

In 2012, Cinema Batalha was considered a public monumento, a governamental distinction that safeguarded the integrity of the building. In 2017, Câmara Municipal do Porto took over management of Cinema Batalha for a period of 25 years, and announced the historic building’s rehabilitation project. This undertaking corresponded to a global investment by the city council of over 5 million euros, and began on the 18th of November of 2019, the architectural project having been assigned to Atelier 15, by Alexandre Alves Costa and Sérgio Fernandez.


In 2021, mayor Rui Moreira announced the restoration of the iconic building to its community, naming Guilherme Blanc as Artistic Director. In December 2022, Batalha opens its doors again.

Espaços

Sala 1

Located at floor 0, the flagship of Batalha’s screening rooms is equipped for the projection of digital and analog formats, and has a capacity of 341 seats — 187 seats in the audience (4 of which for people with restricted mobility) and 112 in the gallery.


Sala 2

Located at floor 2, this room is equipped for the projection of digital and analog formats, and has a capacity of 126 seats (2 for for people with restricted mobility).

Library and Film Library
This space contains a reading room with 14 seats, with books and periodicals freely available for reading. There are also two stations for viewing films from the Film Library.

Sala-Filme
Space for installations of art films and moving image, either directly related or not to exhibition projects.

Cafeteria & Bar

The result of a renovation project in the old tea and coffee room —where the Sala Bebé was built in the 70s — the Batalha Cafeteria & Bar is open all day, with a maximum capacity of 68 people, and occasionally hosting programmes such as installations and performances.

Bookshop
The Batalha Bookshop specialises in cinema and the moving image. Its catalogue comprises Batalha’s own editions and a vast selection of works focussing on cinema from Portugal and around the world, as well as from the fields of visual art, social sciences and human sciences.


Cloakroom
On floor 0, by the main entrance, there is a free to use Checkroom where belongings such as coats, baggage or umbrellas can be stored.

Acessibilidade e Inclusão

Accessibility and Inclusion

Accessibility and inclusion have been fundamental values of the team at Batalha since its inception and are applied across all activities at the Centro de Cinema.

Our goal has been to overcome the obstacles to access posed by our building. Constructed in the 1940s and classified as a Monument of Public Interest in 2012, the building possesses some features that make physical access challenging. During its renovation, some of these features remained unadapted, as the necessary modifications would have appreciably affected the morphological and architectural heritage of the building (which it was our intention to preserve).

We are also committed to ensure that film and the moving image are made more accessible to blind and partially sighted people, d/Deaf people, people with intellectual disabilities, and anyone with other specific needs.

Any questions or suggestions relating to accessibility and inclusion at Batalha can be sent to batalha.bilheteira@agoraporto.pt.


Programme

Batalha’s programme includes:

— Subtitles for d/Deaf persons (in portuguese) in select film screenings;

— Subtiltes in English for all portuguese films;

— Simultaneous translation (in portuguese) in select talks and lectures;

— Portuguese Sign Language in select talks and lectures;

— Portuguese Sign Language in select guided tours, pending appointment;

— Audio description for one screening per season;

— Relaxed film screenings are part of the Family programme.

All these events are all listed in the Calendar section of our website.

People with specific needs are entitled to a discount of 25% at the Ticket Desk. Entry is free for one accompanying person.


Parking and Public Transport

There are two public parking spaces for people with reduced mobility outside 100 Praça da Batalha, across the road from the side entrance of the building (facing Teatro Nacional São João). There is one more parking space at 19 Travessa do Cimo de Vila.

The majority of STCP buses that serve the area — lines 207, 303, 400, 901, 904, 905 and 906 — are equipped with automatic ramps and wheelchair spaces with wheelchair restraint systems.

The Guindais Funicular, which carries passengers between Ribeira and Batalha, is equipped with ramps and lifts to accommodate people with reduced mobility.

The nearest metro stations with lifts are São Bento (400m) and Bolhão (650m). The route from Bolhão station is less steep than from São Bento.


Building

The majority of Batalha’s spaces are accessible to people with reduced mobility. The main entrance (next to Santo Ildefonso church) has a ramp that provides access to floor 0 of the building and the lift. The lift is in Foyer 1 to the right of Sala 1.

Batalha can provide a wheelchair on request. Please ask at the Ticket Desk or in advance by emailing batalha.bilheteira@agoraporto.pt.

Ticket Desk, Sala 1 and Foyer 1 (floor 0): Access via main entrance, using the ramp.

Sala-Filme (floor 0): People with reduced mobility can access this room via Sala 1. Please ask for assistance from a member of staff or at the Ticket Desk.

Cafeteria & Bar and Bookshop (floor -1): Access via the lift. The Cafeteria & Bar has an area with visibility toward the stage reserved for people with reduced mobility. On the same floor, there is a toilet adapted for wheelchair users next to the lift. To access the lower section of the bar, please ask to use the elevator mechanism.

Library/Film Library (floor 1): Access via the lift.

Foyer 2 (floor 2): Access via the lift.

Sala 2 (floor 2): To access this room when using a wheelchair, please ask for assistance from a member of staff or at the Ticket Desk.



Arte no Batalha

Batalha’s architect, Artur Andrade, conceived of the building within the modernist approach of integrating art and sculpture into its architecture. Thus, it features works by five artists, sculptors and painters. The most emblematic of these — for the way they symbolise the history of censorship by Portugal’s Estado Novo regime — are the low- and high-reliefs on the façade, by Américo Braga, and the murals on the foyer walls, by Júlio Pomar. Batalha is also home to further works by Arlindo Rocha, António Sampaio and Augusto Gomes.

 

On the building’s exterior, two tools on the low- and high-relief by Américo Braga (1909–1991) — the hammer in the hand of a labourer and the sickle in the hand of a farmer, together forming a Communist motif — were destroyed by order of the Estado Nova censors. Our 2022 renovation has restored the hammer, now in stainless steel to symbolise its permanent return.

 

Inside the building, we find the two murals Júlio Pomar (1926–2018) painted in the lobby common to the first two floors and in the top floor atrium. Pomar, studying in Porto when Batalha was first built and a significant figure on the student art circuit, painted two frescos depicting celebrations from Porto’s feast of São João. Work on the murals was interrupted when Pomar was arrested for political reasons. They were finished once the building had already opened, only for them to be covered up again shortly after by order of the Estado Novo secret police. The frescos — until now seen only in black and white photographs taken by Ernesto de Sousa — have been restored as part of our 2022 renovation, their vivid characters and colours finally visible to all.

On Floor 1, in the atrium that leads to the gallery, we find a life-sized sculpture of the Roman goddess Flora, sculpted in white plaster by Arlindo Rocha (1921–1999). In the stairwell that links the Sala-Filme and the Cafeteria & Bar, we can see a painting by António Sampaio (1916–1994) featuring landscape scenes and three horses in motion. Inside Sala 1, above the side entrances, there are high-reliefs by Américo Braga and Augusto Gomes (1910–1976) depicting flowers and birds in flight.

Equipa

CÂMARA MUNICIPAL DO PORTO


Mayor

Rui Moreira


BATALHA CENTRO DE CINEMA


Artistic Team

Artistic Director

Guilherme Blanc


Curator

Ana David

 

Assistant Programmer

Lídia Queirós

 

Programmer

(Neighbouring Cinema/Schools)

Joana Canas Marques

 

Mediator and Art Educator

(Neighbouring Cinema/Schools)

Sofia Lemos Marques


Library and Film Library

Rodrigo Affreixo


Management

Chief Management Officer

Salette Ramalho


Management Officer

Simone Amorim


Administrative Assistant

Fernando Ferreira


Production

Chief Executive Producer

Hugo Ramos


Producer 

Bruno Sousa


Communication

Beatriz Pinto

Ricardo Alves

Sandra Mesquita


Subtitles and Translation

Eva Magro

 

Technical and Maintenance

Projectionist

Fernando Garcez


Maintenance

Hélder Ferreira



Collaborations

Design and Visual Identity

Macedo Cannatà


Sound Identity

Favela Discos (Inês Castanheira e João Sarnadas)


Uniform Design

Filipe Augusto


Video

Urgent Voice


Photography

Filipe Braga

Paulo Cunha Martins


Translation

Joseph Owen

Patrícia Silva


Web Programming

Bondlayer


ÁGORA — CULTURA E DESPORTO DO PORTO, E.M.

Chairman of the Board of Directors

Catarina Araújo


Boards of Directors

César Navio, Ester Gomes da Silva


Secretariat

Liliana Gonçalves

 

Direction of People Management, Organization and Information Systems

Sónia Cerqueira (Diretora)
Cátia Ferreira
Elisabete Martins
Helena Vale
Joana Ngola
João Carvalhido
Jorge Ferreira
Madalena Peres
Paulo Cardoso
Paulo Moreira
Ricardo Faria
Ricardo Santos
Ruben Almeida
Sandra Pinheiro
Vânia Silva


Direction of Juridic Services and Recruitment

Jorge Pinto (Diretor)
Amanda Leite
André Cruz
Eunice Coelho
Francisca Mota
Filipa Faria
Filipe Barbot
Jorge Almeida
Pedro Caimoto
Leonor Mendes
Luís Areias
Márcia Teixeira
Marta Silva
Sofia Rebelo
Tiago Abreu


Direction of Finance

Rute Coutinho (Diretora)
Alexandra Espírito Santo
Ana Rita Rodrigues
Fernanda Reis
Manuela Roque
Mariana Vilela
Sandra Ferreira
Sérgio Sousa
Simão Sousa Branca
Sofia Barbosa


Direction of Communication and Image

Bruno Malveira (Diretor)
Agostinho Ferraz
Carina Novo
Catarina Madruga
Francisco Ferreira
José Reis
Maria do Rosário Serôdio
Rui Meireles
Sara Oliveira



Image

Batalha Centro de Cinema

Praça da Batalha, 47
4000-101 Porto

batalha@agoraporto.pt

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