Argentine actress and musician Rosario Bléfari died today at age 54 in La Pampa of cancer. She was best known for her performance in the title role of Martín Rejtman’s acclaimed 1999 film Silvia Prieto, and also worked with numerous directors including María Luisa Bemberg, Rodrigo Moreno, Milagros Mumenthaler, Ezequiel Radusky, Agustín Toscano, Albertina Carri, Ezequiel Yanco, Vladimir Durán, and José Luis Torres Leiva.
Born on December 24, 1965 in Mar del Plata, she gained fame in the nineties as the leading singer of the alternative rock band Suárez that recorded four albums. After the band disintegrated she started a successful solo career, recording five albums and touring throughout Argentina.
She made her film debut in Raúl de la Torre’s Poor Butterfly / Pobre mariposa starring Graciela Borges and Lautaro Murúa, which had its world premiere in the official competition of the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. That same year she also participated in the German film One Glance and Love Breaks Out / Ein Blick und die Liebe bricht aus by Jutta Brückner, and also in 1986, Bléfari starred in Martín Rejtman’s lyrical short film Doli Goes Home / Doli Vuelve a casa, a black-and-white mood piece that fuses a young couple’s passage into early adulthood with a journey through Buenos Aires in the quietest moments at the break of day.
Bléfari also participated in Bemberg’s landmark 1990 film I, the Worst of All / Yo, la peor de todas based on the book Sor Juana, or Traps of Faith by Mexican Nobel Prize-winning writer Octavio Paz. Other film credits include the feature films Lo que vendrá (Gustavo Mosquera, 1988), El color escondido (Raúl de la Torre, 1988), and 1000 Boomerangs (Mariano Galperin, 1995), and the short films Traición (Cristina Fasulino and Paula Grandio, 1990), and Vértigos (Mariela Yeregui, 1993).
Silvia Prieto by Martín Rejtman
In 1999, she worked again with Rejtman, playing the title role in Silvia Prieto, one of the most iconic films of the nascent New Argentine Cinema. The deadpan comedy follows Buenos Aires divorcée Silvia Prieto who, having just turned 27, decides to quit her dead end cafe job, buy a canary and look for new horizons. While she can't quite shake off the attentions of her former husband, tentative romance with her girlfriend's ex brings a flicker of excitement, even if the latter is not quite to be trusted.
Bléfari worked with director Rodrigo Moreno in his 2011 Berlinale official selection A Mysterious World / Un mundo misterioso, and that same year with Chilean filmmaker José Luis Torres Leiva in Verano, which had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival. In 2013 she starred as Pía in the Los Dueños, the debut feature by Agustín Toscano and Ezequiel Radusky, which had its world premiere at Cannes Critics’ Week where it received a Special Jury Mention.
In 2015, the rock band Suárez was subject of the documentary film Entre dos luces by Fernando Blanco, which recounted the story of the pioneering group from its origins in the local indie rock scene, and having access to shows, rehearsals and behind-the-scenes moments. The film, which premiered at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, fueled a regathering of the band.
os Dueños by Agustín Toscano and Ezequiel Radusky
In 2016, Bléfari starred in The Idea of a Lake / La idea de un lago, which had its world premiere in the official competition of the Locarno Film Festival. Based on Guadalupe Gaona’s novel, Pozo de Aire, Milagros Mumenthaler’s second feature follows Inés, a photographer who is putting together a book of poems and images about her own past. In doing so, she finds her family dynamics shifting, as she and her mother and brother all come to terms with the absence of her father, who disappeared during the military dictatorship in Argentina.
Bléfari also gave her voice to the role of Margarita, a mother who’s been locked down by her kids in the debut feature of Colombian director Vladimir Durán So Long Enthusiasm / Adiós entusiasmo. Her last film was the 2019 comedy The Lunchroom / Planta permanente by Ezequiel Radusky, in which she starred as Marcela, a cleaning lady who, along with Lila, has always worked at at municipal building and run an unofficial staff cafeteria. When Lila gets the chance to run it officially as the boss, this elevation provokes Marcela’s envy, and unsettles the delicate balance in the life of the office block.
