Ditos e Escritos is the first publication of the Manoel de Oliveira Collection, sponsored by ICA – the Portuguese Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual.

Manoel de Oliveira always pursued intense theoretical reflection for his film projects, which offer a step-by-step insight into his different understandings, perspectives and aesthetic positions in relation to cinema.

To disseminate this lesser-known dimension of his work and reposition Oliveira amongst the group of the leading theoretical-filmmakers of the twentieth century, the Casa do Cinema is launching a Collection of critical editions that offers a selection of the most relevant documents from the filmmaker's archive and other studies of interest for a renewed understanding and contextualisation of his oeuvre.

Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira was born on December 11, 1908, in Porto. He was the director with the longest career in the history of cinema, in a total of 84 years between his debut as a director (with Douro, Faina Fluvial, in 1931) and his last film (Um Século de Energia, in 2015).

With a filmography that includes more than fifty titles, he was the only filmmaker to move from silent cinema to sound cinema, from black and white to color and from nitrate film to digital support. Having continued to film until the age of 106, Manoel de Oliveira received wide critical recognition, with a work that was awarded at the most important film festivals in the world.