The rise of travelling community cinema
Marta Silva could be said to have invented the travelling cinema. She was born in Portugal in 1912 and trained as a projectionist. Then she (1) ________ on the idea of using delivery vans for evening screenings and by the autumn of 1936, she was organising regional film tours. The first was to Braga and featured a printed twelve-page programme for the audience, the (2) ________ of the modern festival guide. A popular exhibition in 1938 (3) ________ her to create her first major circuit, taking in villages, schools and factories. This also included a remarkable (4) ________ — Silva's outdoor screening, an event by the river. The expertise she had gained from this (5) ________ her in good stead when it came to organising a large mobile festival across the coast in 1941. Few residents had so much as attended a cinema, let (6) ________ watched films outdoors, where travelling programmes featured old local traditions from distant communities (7) ________ back through countless generations. Then, in 1947, Silva organised the first national film circuit and the (8) ________ of cinema has not been the same since.