Original Title
A Calúnia
Year
1926
Runtime (minutes)
101
Director
Manuel Luís Vieira
Synopsis
On the outskirts of Funchal, Margarida lives with her father, a rich and kind landowner. At the opposite end, Gaspar arrives at his mansion. He's bankrupt, having squandered the family fortune. Visiting Justino - his uncle, who promises to help him - Gaspar meets Margarida, who leads him to arrange an ambitious affair.
Born in Funchal in 1885, Manuel Luís Vieira (who would go on to direct numerous documentaries and become one of the key cinematographers in Portuguese fiction cinema of the 1930s and 1940s) founded the Empresa Cinegráfica Atlântida in that city. This venture was a personal undertaking carried out outside the main Portuguese production structures of the time, and it began with the conversion of his former photography studio into a film studio. *A Calúnia* was the first film produced in this context, born entirely from the desire to combine Vieira’s photographic skills with the scenic potential of the island.