08/12/2009

64-year-old journalist Maria João Seixas will be the new director of the Portuguese Cinematheque. The appointment is due to be formally announced later this week by Portugal's new Minister of Culture, Gabriela Canavilhas.

Seixas is to assume the position in January 2010, one year after the Cinematheque's former director João Bénard da Costa abandoned the job due to health reasons. Bénard da Costa died last May, and the former Minister of Culture, José António Pinto Ribeiro, had not nominated a new director since.

Pedro Mexia, who assumed the institution's interim direction over the last year, is to stay on as vice-director – a position to which he was appointed by Benard da Costa in April 2008.

With a long background in politics as well as journalism, Seixas has also collaborated with filmmaker Fernando Lopes on several projects, among them the script of The Dauphin and Lissabon Wuppertal Lisboa, a documentary about the late German choreographer Pina Bausch.

Besides the challenge of replacing the Cinematheque’s legendary director Bénard da Costa - whose policies and strong personality had a lasting influence on the institution – Seixas will have to deal with other issues, among them the possible opening of an extension of the Lisbon-based Cinematheque in the city of Porto, a controversial project that has been advocated for years.