RIP António da Cunha Teles

 

The producer and director António da Cunha Telles died. He was 87 years old

He produced films such as "The Green Years" (1963), by Paulo Rocha, and "Belarmino" (1964), by Fernando Lopes.

 

Diario di Noticias

By Lusa

November 24, 2022

Producer and director António da Cunha Telles, one of the inseparable names of Portuguese Cinema Novo in the 1960s, died on Wednesday at the age of 87, his daughter, producer Pandora da Cunha Telles, told Lusa.

According to the producer, António da Cunha Telles died at Cuf Tejo Hospital, in Lisbon, and the funeral will take place on Saturday in the capital.

Director of "O Cerco" in 1970, his connection to cinema and the emergence of the new expression goes back to the beginning of the 1960s, with the production of founding films of the Portuguese Cinema Novo such as "Os verde anos" (1963), by Paulo Rocha, and "Belarmino" (1964), by Fernando Lopes.

He directed the film of "Vidas" (1984), "Pandora (1996) and "Kiss Me" (2004).

António Cohen da Cunha Telles, who was born in Funchal, in February 1935, had practically completed, and still unpublished, the film "Cherchez la femme".

Son of a Portuguese lawyer and a Danish lyric singer, it was in Funchal that António Cohen da Cunha Telles started making films as a teenager.

In the documentary "Chamo-me António da Cunha Telles" (2011), by Álvaro Romão, the producer remembers to develop the film of these first films in the bathtub, at home, because otherwise it would take three months, if he sent it to be developed in the continent.

António da Cunha Telles intended to study Medicine in Lisbon, but ended up following the paths of cinema. He directed the current affairs newspaper "Imagens de Portugal", worked for the cinema services of the Directorate-General for Primary Education and guided courses at Mocidade Portuguesa, and was a camera operator for RTP, having filmed the visit of Queen Isabel II to Portugal in 1957.

He received a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and went to Paris to study directing at the Institut d'Hautes Études Cinematographiques, where he met Paulo Rocha. And it is by Paulo Rocha the first film that Cunha Telles produces. "Os Verdes Anos" represents a first for most of the technicians and cast involved and also for Paulo Rocha himself as a director.

The film, starring Isabel Ruth and Rui Gomes, with music by guitarist Carlos Paredes, is considered a founding moment of a new Portuguese cinema, to which not only Cunha Telles will be linked, but also a generation of other directors, such as Fernando Lopes, Manuel Guimarães , Faria de Almeida and António de Macedo.

"The sad cinema that still existed, without grace, without joke, without ideas, gray, didn't want us to appear, completely closed the doors to us. (...) My first idea was to have been second assistant to one of the directors of the time, to see how it worked. That was forbidden to us. We got closer and started making films with teams that we invented", said Cunha Telles, in 2014, in an interview on public radio Antena 2.

Awarded by the Presidency of the Republic with the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of Infante D. Henrique

In 2014, when it dedicated a cinema cycle to Cunha Telles, Cinemateca Portuguesa recalled that the producer created the university course in Experimental Cinema, "which trained a large part of the generation of Cinema Novo technicians", and also played an important role in the distribution , from 1973, with Animatografo.

"His role as a distributor, based on a cinephile logic that he cultivated at the French Cinematheque in his student days, is equally notable, having been responsible for showing in Portugal classic films by filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, Roberto Rossellini, as well as emerging filmmakers at the time: Nagisa Oshima, Alain Tanner, Bernardo Bertolucci and Glauber Rocha", underlined the Cinemateca.

Cunha Telles' resume, as an associate producer, also includes films such as "Angústia" (1964), by François Truffaut, "The Barber of Siberia" (1998), by Nikita Mikhalkov, "Belle Époque" (1992), by Fernando Trueba , and "The daughter of D'Artagnan" (1994), by Bertrand Tavernier, all partially filmed in Portugal.

The official biography recalls that António da Cunha Telles founded the distributor Animatógrafo, "considered a revolution in the type of cinema seen in Portugal", allowing the arrival of films by directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, Glauber Rocha, Bernardo Bertollucci, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

António da Cunha Telles would once again sign dozens of film productions, particularly from the 1980s onwards, such as "O Bobo" (1982), by José Álvaro de Morais, "Balada da Praia dos Cães" (1986), by José Fonseca and Costa, "O Fio do Horizonte" (1993), by Fernando Lopes, "Aqui na Terra" (1993), by João Botelho, and "Terra Sonâmbula" (2006), by Teresa Prata.

He has also produced telefilms, in particular for SIC, namely "Monsanto" (2000), by Ruy Guerra, "Mustang" (2000), by Leonel Vieira, and "Facas e Anjos" (2000), by Eduardo Guedes.

Despite this multiplication of functions in cinema, in production, distribution and training, and in management positions, in the administration of the former Instituto Português de Cinema and at Tobis, Cunha Telles admitted in 2017: "In my heart I am more of a director than a producer".

António da Cunha Telles made his debut in fiction feature films in 1970 with "O Cerco", starring Maria Cabral and presented that year in Cannes.

He also participated in the collective film "As Armas e o Povo" (1975), which portrays the period lived in Portugal between April 25th and May 1st, 1974.

In the following decades, António da Cunha Telles would make less than a dozen films, such as "Meus Amigos" (1974), the documentary "Continuar a Viver ou os Índios da Meia Praia" (1976), "Pandora" (1993) and " Kiss Me" (2004).

António da Cunha Telles, honorary member of the Portuguese Academy of Cinema, was awarded in 2018 by the Presidency of the Republic with the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of Infante D. Henrique "for the relevant services he rendered to Portugal, in the country and abroad, for the knowledge of Portugal, its history and its values", reads a note from the Assembly of the Republic.

da CUNHA TELLES, Antonio (António Alexandre Cohen da Cunha Teles)

Born: 2/16/1935, Funchal Madeira, Portugal

Died: 11/23/2022, Lisbon, Portugal

 

Antonio de Cunha Telles’ western – executive producer:

L’aigle et le cheval (TV) - 1994