Aniki-Bóbó is a 1942 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira, GCSE is a Portuguese film director born in Cedofeita, Porto. He began working on films in the late 1920s, but did not receive international recognition until the early 1970s. Since the late 1980s he has been one of the most prolific working film directors and...

. It is his first feature-length film. Mostly children, from Oliveira's hometown, Porto

Porto

Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

, play in its story. The script was adapted by Manoel de Oliveira from a short story by José Rodrigues de Freitas, Meninos Milionários (lit. Millionaire Children). Aniki-Bóbó is a rhyme from a children's game, akin to Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", which can be spelled a number of ways, is a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person to be "it" for games and similar purposes such as counting out a child that has to be stood down from a group of children as part of a playground game...

.

The film was not very well received, but with time it gained recognition and was finally accepted as one of the most important Portuguese films of its time. In several respects, this film seems to anticipate Italian neorealism

Italian neorealism

Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...

. No other feature film was directed by Oliveira in the next 21 years.