Manoel de Oliveira, Portuguese filmmaker, dies

Manoel de Oliveira, a Portuguese filmmaker who got his start with silent movies, has died. He was 106.

Oliveira’s first foray into filmmaking was in 1931 when he directed silent documentary Working on the Douro River. His first full-length film came 11 years later when he debuted Aniki-Bóbó in 1942—and then he mostly disappeared from the film world until the ’70s to tend to his family’s farm, according to the New York Times.

His film career’s resurgence came in 1971, and he quickly became known for his simple directing style. He continued to make a mix of feature-length and shorter documentary films—almost one per year—up until 2014.

Oliveira won a number of awards during the later years of his career and was nominated for 11 prizes total at Cannes Film Festival between 1988 and 2010. Throughout that period, he was often praised for his longevity. But he never wanted to make too big a fuss out of that: “I see myself being more admired for my age than for my films, which, being good or bad, will always be my responsibility,” he told the Times in 2008. “But I am not responsible for my age.”