Paulo Rocha on AllMovie

Portuguese filmmaker Paulo Rocha made an important contribution to Portugal's New Cinema with his directorial debut Os Verdes Anos/The Green Years (1962). Rocha had studied law in Lisbon before attending France's premiere film school, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (IDHEC), where he studied direction between 1959 and 1961. Following graduation from IDHEC, Rocha assisted Jean Renoir on Le Caporal Épinglé/The Elusive Corporal (1961). Rocha returned to Portugal to assist Manoel de Olveira with Acto da Primavera/The Spring Play and A Caça/The Hunt (1963). Though his 1962 debut feature met with great success, Rocha did not release another feature until Mudar de Vida/Change of Life in 1966. Except for a pair of short films in the early '70s, he would abandon filmmaking until 1983. In the interim, Rocha spent 1973 to 1974 serving as a staff member of the Centro Português de Cinema. In 1975, Rocha was appointed Cultural Attaché at the Portuguese Embassy in Tokyo; he remained there until 1983, and upon his return made the full-length documentary A Ilha de Moraes/Moraes' Island, which was based on the life and career of author Wenceslau de Moraes. Rocha's subsequent output has been more frequent than before. In 1998, he released O Rio do Oro, which featured a script that Rocha had written three decades before.