Batalha Centro de Cinema

Regular film screenings in the city of Porto began in the summer of 1906 at the Salão High-Life, a shack at Feira de S. Miguel, located where the Rotunda da Boavista is today. This project was started by Manuel da Silva Neves and Edmond Pascaud — who would go on to found Neves & Pascaud, an iconic company in the city's cinematography history. The Salão High-Life, which brought together in its audience different social strata of the city, was at the Feira de S. Miguel for only two months, and was then moved to Jardim da Cordoaria. Two years later, under the name Novo Salão High-Life, it moved definitively to Praça da Batalha, but it only started to take its familiar shape in the 1940s! The building, which housed the Novo Salão High-Life, was demolished and replaced by the new Cinema, a building designed by Artur Andrade. But Cinema Batalha would end up closing, for the first time, in 2000.

In 2012, Cinema Batalha was listed Monument of Public Interest, a designation that safeguarded the building’s integrity. Finally, in 2017, Porto City Hall took over the management of Cinema Batalha for a period of 25 years and announced its intention to renovate the historic building. It was then returned to the city in December 2022.

Built within a modernist approach of integrating visual arts into architecture, the building features works by five artists. The most iconic, due to their symbolic value in the history of censorship under the Estado Novo regime in Portugal, are the low and high relief on the façade and the murals by Júlio Pomar. At Cinema Batalha we can also find works by Arlindo Rocha, António Sampaio and Augusto Gomes.

The iconic Centro de Cinema is back up and running with new spaces to explore, such as the Library and Film Library, Sala-Filme, Bookshop and the Café/Bar. The programme also offers a new look to film that includes the presentation of retrospectives, themed cycles, focuses on contemporary practices and the connections between film and other arts.