Alfredo Tropa

Biography

Alfredo Ricardo Rezende Tropa (Porto, March 29, 1939 - Lisbon, July 5, 2020) was a Portuguese film director. He was director of RTP's Archives and Documentation. In 1958, he left for Coimbra to attend the Faculty of Sciences and became interested in cinema through the film club movement. In 1960, in the same city, he began making short films. He went to Paris the following year, where, on a scholarship from the National Cinema Fund, he attended IDHEC and graduated in Directing. After an internship in French television, he returned to Portugal and founded Média Filmes with other filmmakers. He was assistant director on a number of films, such as Mudar de Vida, by Paulo Rocha, and Uma Abelha na Chuva, by Fernando Lopes, and also worked continuously on short films. In 1968, he joined Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (RTP). As the founder of the Portuguese Film Centre, he was part of the first group of directors to be subsidized by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in its support for the launch of the so-called Cinema Novo. Alfredo Tropa's filmography includes Inundações (short film, 1960), Regata (short film, 1968), Um Homem, Uma Obra (short film, 1973), Pedro Só (1970-1971) and Bárbara (1979-1980). Mention should also be made of the 1971 television series O Povo que Canta.