António da Cunha Telles


António da Cunha Telles is a Portuguese film director and producer. He was born in Funchal.

Biography

António Cohen da Cunha Telles was born on February 26, 1935, in Funchal, Madeira. He studied Medicine in the University of Lisbon. He went to Paris around 1956, studying film-making at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques, graduating in 1961.
Back to Portugal, he ran a newspaper called Imagens de Portugal , and assumed leading functions at the Cinema Services of State Entities.
His directing debut was made with the documentary Os Transportes, and starts activity as a producer, becoming one of the essential names of the Portuguese New Cinema movement. He produces Os Verdes Anos by Paulo Rocha and Belarmino by Fernando Lopes.
In 1970, Cunha Telles directed his first feature-film, O Cerco. Meanwhile, he established a distribution company which becomes responsible for a revolution in the kind of cinema seen in Portugal in the first half of the 1970s. Eisenstein, Tanner, Jorge Sanjines, Littín, Glauber Rocha, Vigo, Gilles Carle, Karmitz, among others, became more familiar to the Portuguese audience through that distributor.
During the 1970s, Telles directed three films: Meus Amigos and Continuar a Viver signed by himself, As Armas e o Povo together with other directors. In the end of the decade, Cunha Telles is found high placed as the leader of the Portuguese Cinema Institute and the Tobis Portuguesa.
In 1983, returns to production, since the Animatógrafo firm was divided in one sector of distribution and one sector of production, headed by himself, which is dedicated to its own productions as well as assuring executive productions of foreign films partially shot in Portugal, counting since that date with a large number of productions, with films directed by names like José Fonseca e Costa, Eduardo Geada, Joaquim Leitão, Edgar Pêra, António de Macedo, António-Pedro Vasconcelos and among several telefilms and a countless number of executive productions.
The most recent films directed by Cunha Telles are Vidas, Pandora and, more recently, Kiss Me, the first and only cinematic experience of the top model Marisa Cruz.

Filmography

As Director

2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983