NOS Lusomundo Cinemas is the largest Portuguese cinema exhibitor, with 40.4% of the 530 theaters in the country's commercial circuit, and has decided that, starting on Wednesday, three theaters will start showing only Portuguese cinema daily.

"With these three theaters, we can encourage people to come, create a habit, and know that they will always find Portuguese cinema in that space. It may be possible to work with a specific audience and increase this market share", he stressed.

Nuno Aguiar says that this decision is NOS Lusomundo Cinemas' contribution to Portuguese cinema reaching "a share of perhaps 10%" in terms of the number of viewers and, consequently, in box office revenue.

According to the most recent data from the Film and Audiovisual Institute, in 2023, 47 Portuguese-produced films were released, which totaled 328,762 viewers and generated 1.5 million euros in box office revenue.

This means that Portuguese cinema released in theaters represented, in 2023, a share of 2.1% in revenue and 2.7% in audience compared to the total panorama of films released in the country, being one of the lowest market shares in the European space.

The most-watched Portuguese film in 2023 in the Portuguese commercial circuit was the comedy "Pôr do Sol: O Mistério do Colar de São Cajó", by Manuel Pureza, with 118,671 viewers.

For example, in France, one of the strongest countries in the European space in terms of cinema, French films represented 39.8% of the market in 2023, totaling 71.9 million viewers, according to data from the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image.

For the general director of NOS Lusomundo Cinemas, the option of having three movie theaters removes the commercial pressure that exists in other theaters for Portuguese cinema, due to the number of films that are released in theaters. But Nuno Aguiar rejects that this initiative could turn into a ghetto.

"Obviously, this is not limiting. If there is Portuguese cinema that justifies having many more theaters, all the films that justify it - in fact, most films, at least those that have more impact on viewers - will be released in many more theaters than these three", he said.

Asked about what a commercial Portuguese film is and what has "more impact on viewers", Nuno Aguiar answers as an exhibitor.

"Commercial cinema is cinema that has 50,000 viewers, 100,000. If it has a thousand or less, I admit that the films are very good, but in terms of exhibition and commercials, they do not attract as much public. The perspective of the quality of the work is another. As an exhibitor, it is this commercial component, the number of viewers that it manages to attract, that interests us", he said.

For the manager, "Portuguese cinema has to get used to making at least two films a year with more than 200,000 viewers and others with more than 50,000". "Otherwise, we will never reach 10% of the market share", he said.

According to the exhibitor, starting on Wednesday, the cinemas at Alvaláxia Shopping, in Lisbon, Alma Shopping, in Coimbra, and Alameda Shop & Spot, in Porto, will have a theater for Portuguese cinema.

The opening of the initiative is scheduled for Wednesday, in Lisbon, with a session with three Portuguese short films, under the title "Entre Muros", bringing together the films "2720", by Basil da Cunha, "Corpos Cintilantes", by Inês Teixeira, and "Natureza Humana", by Mónica Lima.

The session, at 7:30 pm, will be attended by the authors, in a conversation moderated by António Brito Guterres.

According to the exhibitor, the programming already planned until September includes films such as "Cândido -- O espião que veio do futebol", by Jorge Paixão da Costa, the premieres of "O teu rosto será o último", by Luís Filipe Rocha, "Camarada Cunhal", by Sérgio Graciano, and "Mãos no Fogo", by Margarida Gil, and the re-releases of "Pátio das Cantigas" and "O pai tirano".

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