Acropolis Cinema
Bringing experimental, international, and undistributed films to Los Angeles
The Green Years (Dir. Paulo Rocha, 1963)
From August 7-13, The Green Years will be available to stream
via Acropolis Cinema and Grasshopper Film. Acropolis will receive
50% of all revenue. Click here to rent.
If you'd like to offer additional support, you can make a tax
deductible donation to Acropolis by clicking here.
New digital restoration supervised by Pedro Costa!
Nineteen-year-old Julio heads to Lisbon from the provinces and gets a job as a shoemaker for his uncle Raul. But when he meets Ilda, a confident young housemaid who becomes a regular shop visitor, his working-class values collide with the bourgeois trappings of modern life. Never before released in the U.S., Rocha’s debut film, gloriously shot in black and white, is an extraordinary and haunting coming-of-age film. Winner of Best First Film at the 1964 Locarno Film Festival.
A groundbreaking film.
Alexandra Gandra, Taste of Cinema
The founding mark of the so-called New Portuguese Cinema.
Paulo Granja, Paulo Rocha's Os Verde Anos and the New Portuguese Cinema
Paulo Rocha’s films are among the most beautiful, exquisite and generous gifts of the Portuguese cinema.
Boris Nelepo, MUBI Notebook
The first film of a new generation. Striking in its context and rich in the modernity of its processes, its content, and its mastery of filmmaking. The Green Years has revealed the very particular genius of this new director.
Manoel de Oliveira
I watched [The Green Years] on television...because of my parents’ influence—especially my father’s—and from the film I obviously remembered Isabel Ruth, who I consider a type of Portuguese Anna Karina, the most beautiful girl in Portuguese cinema.
Pedro Costa, Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema
