António Ferro and Portugal’s atlantic crusade through cinema

Abstract

With the outbreak of World War II, cinema took on a particularly important role, as instrument of the regime's foreign propaganda, privileged ambassador of Portugal abroad. In this context, of the early forties, and of the national propaganda’s foreign policy - through the National Propaganda Office (SPN) directed by António Ferro - stood out the cultural relations established with Brazil and Spain, in what was understood as a "crusade of Lusitanity”, taking the cinema a relevant role for the Atlantic projection of the Nation.