Making a material history of António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro’s cinema would mean, firstly, to reflect on an analysis method. Complementing the film critique, cinema history, and film studies, this perspective would take into account the material dimension of all films. This material dimension must be understood, in a narrow sense, as an analysis of the technical conditions that influence the production, the distribution and archival life of film materials that constitute a cinematographic work and which influence the construction, reception and memory of a film. Secondly, it must also be extended to the analysis of its exhibition circuit, that is, to the history of private and public sessions, commercial and non-commercial, through which a work has built its relationship with the audience. That is, to understand in what material conditions a copy was exhibited, how the spectators behaved, how the projectionist’s work or the conditions of the room in the movie theatre itself will have influenced the reception of the work. Finally, the creative process of the cinematographic work cannot be forgotten, the tensions between the different elements of that process, and perhaps the existence of different versions, to which the eventual restorations of a film must be added. Before “Jaime”, António Reis directed two films with the producer César Guerra Leal: “Painéis do Porto” (1963) and “Do céu ao rio” (1964) – and not “Do rio ao céu” as it has been wrongly mentioned in António Reis’ filmographies. “Do céu ao rio” was premiered at the Odéon cinema in Lisbon, on January 29, in 1964, but it is in a more fragile heritage situation since its original image negative is not located. Besides the optical sound negative in 35mm, two copies of the film were deposited at the Cinemateca, in 2008, one in 16mm and the other in 35mm, both unfortunately in a very advanced state of chromatic degradation due to the poor conservation conditions in which they were stored from the time of production. This short film, probably commissioned by the Hidro-Eléctrica do Cávado, shows several aspects of the dams’ network construction in that hydrographic basin, with a commentary read by Fernando Pessa. The interest of these films was very early pointed out by Fernando Lopes, who indicated them as one of the reasons to risk the production of “Jaime” at the Portuguese Center of Cinema (Centro Português de Cinema – CPC): “I had seen one or two things that Reis had done, some small documentaries in which he had participated. I had been very impressed with the images in the midst of those touristic documentaries that were not touristic images at all, but they were images that had a transfiguring vision of reality...”(1) However, the development of this impression was suspended due to the lack of projectable copies of these two films until very recently. Invisible since the 1960s, they were not included in the great retrospective Reis e Cordeiro, organized by the Cinemateca and the Cineclube of Faro under the Rotas – Cultural Diffusion Programme of the Ministry of Culture, in November 1997, these short films received only very brief references in the studies about the work of the filmmakers. It is hoped that the preservation of 2013-14 of the first film and the works of digitalization and digital restoration of the image of the second film can change this situation, returning the films to the audience view and contributing to the analysis of its role in this early stage of the António Reis’ career. The critic A. Roma Torres accurately summed up the question of the “invisibility” of the cinema of Reis and Cordeiro when he wrote, in 1992, that their films “have a rare relationship with the spectator. In the first place, they do not give themselves to see. In general, their films do not have access to normal exhibition. The spectator will not find them in a common programme. There is such a ritual that soon forces the spectator to see the film under conditions of particular availability. The ‘aura’ of the films of António Reis and Margarida Cordeiro has something of religious, of sacred.”(2) This forced invisibility of the films led, according to A. Roma Torres, to a paradox. Although these films do not make themselves visible, they “seek an unusual relationship with the spectator during the projection. It can be said that they are films made to be seen more than once, and often new signs and new relations are discovered each time.” However, the reception mode to which the films invite was historically sabotaged by the difficulty of seeing these works. A brief quantitative review clarifies the direct relation between the preservation of the films and their exhibition: from the retrospective of 1997, “Jaime” and “Trás-os-Montes” were shown in Cinemateca 12 times each; “Ana”, 6 times; and “Rosa de Areia”, 4; “Painéis do Porto” itself was shown once in 2013, shortly after its preservation. “Do céu ao rio” was never shown. Exhibitions held outside the Cinemateca are, in turn, significantly more numerous. Since the retrospective of 1997, Jaime has been shown 16 times in sessions in the rest of the country and 42 abroad; “Trás-os-Montes”, 14 times in Portugal and 53 abroad; “Ana”, 7 in Portugal and 16 abroad; and “Rosa de Areia”, 6 in Portugal and 15 abroad. “Do céu ao rio” was shown only once. Taking into account the material dimension of Reis and Cordeiro’s cinema is a way of doing justice to two filmmakers who, on the one hand, were acutely aware that the relation of their films with the audience would depend on the quality of the exhibited copies, but, on the other hand, they saw this same relationship systematically disturbed by various material contingencies – from laboratory problems in the revelation and impression of copies to the structural problems of the distribution market. Tiago Baptista 1. Cinemagazine, 17-9-1991, cit. in António Reis e Margarida Cordeiro: A poesia da terra, org. de Anabela Moutinho e Graça Lobo, Faro, Cineclube de Faro, 1997, p. 112.