O Pão , Bread ( Manoel de Oliveira, 1959)

Each day, a man must work around the clock to produce and acquire bread: throwing the seeds into earth, helping the breeding of the corn, the corns recolt, transport to the mills, manipulation of the flour into actual bread, transport to a variety of locations and consumers. Considered the best of the commissioned short films which effectively served as Oliveira s filmmaking apprenticeship, Bread follows the birth and life of a loaf, from the wheat fields to the bakery. Almost entirely silent, Bread is an important transitional work between the montage driven Douro, Working River and Oliveira s later work. It was during the search for locations for Bread that Oliveira discovered the local Passion play that would become the subject of his breakthrough film, Rite of Spring. from Harvard Film Achive