Manoel de Oliveira

Also known as Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira, Manoel Candido Pinto De Oliveira

Portuguese film director (1908–2015)

Person · Open Library

Born: 1908
Died: 2015
Works: 4

Top works

Manoel de Oliveira
Manoel de Oliveira
Belle toujours
O convento

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Directing · Porto, Portugal

Manoel de Oliveira was born in Porto, Portugal on December 11, 1908, to Francisco José de Oliveira and Cândida Ferreira Pinto. His family were wealthy industrialists. Oliveira attended school in Galicia, Spain and his goal as a teenager was to become an actor. He enrolled in Italian film-maker Rino Lupo's acting school at age 20, but later changed his mind when he saw Walther Ruttmann's…

Known for

The Life of Mirrors2025
The Glory of Filmmaking in Portugal — Himself2015
Visit, or Memories and Confessions — Self2015
Jornal Português (1938-1951) — Self (archive footage)2015
Henri Langlois vu par... — Self2014
Biette — Self2013

Article

Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira GCSE GCIH ( Portuguese: [mɐnuˈɛl doliˈvɐjɾɐ]; 11 December 1908 – 2 April 2015) was a Portuguese film director and screenwriter born in Cedofeita, Porto. He first began making films in 1927, when he and some friends attempted to make a film about World War I. In 1931, he completed his first film Douro, Faina Fluvial, a documentary about his home city Porto made in the city-symphony genre. He made his feature film debut in 1942 with Aniki-Bóbó and continued to make shorts and documentaries for the next 30 years, gaining a minimal amount of recognition without being considered a major filmmaker.

In 1971, Oliveira directed his second feature narrative film, Past and Present, a social satire that both set the standard for his film career afterwards and gained him recognition in the global film community. He continued making films of growing ambition throughout the 1970s and 1980s, gaining critical acclaim and numerous awards. Beginning in the late 1980s, he was one of the most prolific working film directors and made an average of one film per year past the age of 100. In March 2008, he was reported to be the oldest active film director in the world. In world film history, Manoel de Oliveira was the only active filmmaker from the silent period into the digital age.