Rite of Spring (film)
1963 film by Manoel de Oliveira

Rite of Spring (Portuguese: Acto da Primavera) is a 1963 Portuguese docudrama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira, his second feature, and co-written by Francisco Vaz De Guimaraes.
Poet and director António Reis served as assistant director, and his influence can be felt deeply throughout. The film was included in the 2012 program The School of Reis.
Synopsis
The inhabitants of Curalha, a small village in western Portugal, perform the Passion of Jesus every year according to text from about the 16th century, a tradition upon which Oliveira stumbled during the production of a film in 1963. The film is also remembered for "a furious apocalyptic montage that links Christ's death to the violence and lunacy of the Vietnam era".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rite of Spring (film)” as 1963 film by Manoel de Oliveira. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1963 film by Manoel de Oliveira. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2091800. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963 and 2012.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Rite of Spring (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.