Manoel de Oliveira, who was believed to be the world’s oldest film director, has passed away at the age of 106.
The Portuguese film-maker and screenwriter started his career in 1931 with a silent documentary about Porto, the country’s second biggest city, and went on to win two career Golden Lions from the Venice film festival as well as an honorary Palme d’Or from Cannes.
The majority of his films were made after his 75th birthday. In his final three decades de Oliveira became one of Portugal’s most well-known film-makers for movies including The Uncertainty Principle and The Satin Slipper. He also worked with international stars such as John Malkovich and Catherine Deneuve in The Convent and Voyage to the Beginning of the World with Marcello Mastroianni.
His career also saw him make a sequel to Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour called Belle Toujour. His last full film Gebo and the Shadow was released in 2012, but only last year he made two short movies. “His work is fastidious, mannered, romantic in a chilly way, largely concerned with the upper-middle classes and with art itself,” Philip French, former Observer film critic, wrote in 2002.
He is survived by four children and his wife of 75 years, Maria Isabel Brandao de Meneses de Almeida Carvalhais.
