As explained by Antonio Rodrigues, in addition to affinities with Christian culture and class, two other factors were important for his connection to the CCC: one was linked to the fact that the films chosen were different than those shown in other film societies, because they dealt with the spirit of Catholicism (Bresson and Rossellini were his directors of choice). The other factor was related to the texts for submission of the films, which were written by the directors of the film society themselves. The latter explains the precious "Folhas da Cinemateca” (Pages of the Cinematheque) – no other European Cinematheque has them except the Portuguese Cinematheque. In fact, "he would remain faithful to this practice during the nearly forty years of his career as programmer." (Magníficas obsessões, 'Magnificent Obsessions', 2011, pp. 32-33).

João Bénard da Costa was also one of the founders of the magazine O Tempo e o Modo (Time and Manner), in 1963. He was its editor-in-chief, and from 1963 to 1970, its director. He was a researcher at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Centre for Educational Research from 1964 to 1966 and Executive Secretary of the Portuguese Committee of the International Association for Cultural Freedom from 1966 to 1974.

When the Cinema Sector of the Department of Fine Arts of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was created in 1969, he was put in charge of this office until 1991. He returned to teaching from 1973 to 1980, as Professor of Film History at the National Conservatory’s Escola Superior de Cinema. He taught the same course in 1994-95 at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and, in 1999-2000, at the Universidade Lusófona.

Until the age of thirty-nine, João Bénard da Costa was born, lived and earned his degree in Portugal during the Estado Novo, with first Salazar and then Marcelo Caetano as the only figures of the Portuguese government. By the very nature of the authoritarian regime, which involved censorship of all forms of artistic expression, many important films in the history of the cinema could not be shown in Portugal. Even when it was not banned, a film's subtitles and/or images could be cut or undergo changes to its dialogues. Restrictions were political, religious and moral in nature, and perhaps also because of this, this lack of pivotal films in Portugal lasted longer than in any other country in Europe where there was a dictatorship.

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