António Cohen da Cunha Telles was born on February 26, 1935 in Funchal, Madeira. He studied Medicine in the University of Lisbon. He went to Paris around 1956, studying film-making at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques (IDHEC), graduating in 1961.

His directing debut was made with the documentary "Os Transportes" (1962), and starts activity as a producer, becoming one of the essential names of the Portuguese New Cinema (Novo Cinema) movement. He produces "Os Verdes Anos" (1963) by Paulo Rocha and "Belarmino" (1964) by Fernando Lopes. In 1970, Cunha Telles directed his first feature-film, "O Cerco". Meanwhile, he established a distribution company (Animatógrafo) which becomes responsible for a revolution in the kind of cinema seen in Portugal in the first half of the 1970s. Eisenstein, Tanner, Jorge Sanjines, Littín, Glauber Rocha, Vigo, Gilles Carle, Karmitz, among others, became more familiar to the Portuguese audience through that distributor.