Argentine filmmaker and politician Fernando Ezequiel ‘Pino’ Solanas, a key figure of Latin American cinema, died today in Paris at the age of 84 of Coronavirus. One of the figureheads of the Third Cinema movement and the politically-committed New Latin American Cinema of the late sixties and seventies, Solanas was best known for his landmark documentary film The Hour of the Furnaces / La hora de los hornos, a seminal work of radical activist cinema.
Solanas was born in Olivos, in the province of Buenos Aires on February 16, 1936. He studied literature, music, dance, and law, and pursued theater arts at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. In 1962, at age 26, he directed his first fiction short film Seguir andando, and creates his own film production company. The following year he directed the short film, Reflexión ciudadana.
In 1968, with his friend and colleague Octavio Getino, he shoots in secret The Hour of the Furnaces, a documentary film about neocolonialism and violence in Argentina and South America, divided into three parts: “Notes and Testimonies on Neocolonialism, Violence and Liberation;” “Act for Liberation” and “Violence and Liberation.”
The 255-minute film which was distributed by workers organizations and student groups became the most influential political documentary of the era and according to film scholar Jorge Ruffinelli managed to be different things at once “instrument of leftist political and social protest; manifesto; educational cinematic debate, essay of cultural interpretation of Latin America in general and of Argentina in particular; a filmic collage, collecting and juxtaposing fragments from other films of the period; active artifact in the democratization of images; unofficial history. It was also the most controversial film of the 1960s.”
A year later, Solanas, Getino, and Gerardo Vallejo, founded the Cine Liberación group. The group created the influential 1969 manifesto essay ‘Towards a Third Cinema,’ advocating for a new kind of cinema ‘liberated from the constraints of capitalist production and distribution.’ That same year, Solanas and other Argentine filmmakers filmed Argentina, mayo de 1969: los caminos de la liberación, a documentary on the collective political unrest in the South American country using cinema as a tool of protest.
In 1971, the Grupo Cine Liberación was summoned by deposed Argentina president Juan Domingo Perón during his exile in Spain to film his cinematographic testimony which resulted in their film Perón: Actualización política y doctrinaria para la toma del poder.
In 1972, Solanas starts shooting his first fiction feature film, Sons of Fierro / Los hijos de Fierro (1972), but cold only finish the film in 1977 in Europe after he was exiled from Argentina—first in Spain and finally settles in France—for political reasons in 1976. The film, which screened at the Directors’ Fortnight at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival and was banned for some years in Argentina, uses the the well-known literary character of Martín Fierro, to create an epic and lyrical film that becomes a political allegory of the seventies in Argentina.
In 1980, Solanas directed the documentary film The Look of Others / Le Regard des autres, and returns to Buenos Aires in 1983 following the restoration of democracy to Argentina following the brutal military dictatorship. In 1985, Solanas directs in France the film Tangos, the Exile of Gardel / El exilio de Gardel: Tangos starring Marie Laforêt, Miguel Ángel Solá and Philippe Leotard. The musical follows a group of Argentinean dissidents living in Paris in the seventies who stage a theater revue based on the music of Carlos Gardel. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Film Award at the Havana Film Festival.
Three years later he premieres his film The South / El Sur at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Best Director Award. set at the end of the military dictatorship and starring Susú Pecoraro, Miguel Ángel Solá, Philippe Léotard, Lito Cruz, and Ulises Dumont, the film follows Floreal, a man who is released from prison, but instead of returning to his wife, he wanders through the night of Buenos Aires meeting some people from his past–most of which are only imaginary–and remembers the events of his imprisonment.
He was outspoken critic of Argentine president Carlos Menem, who implemented deep neoliberal politics in the country. In 1991, Solanas suffered an attack, but he continued to satirize the government while developing a political career of his own, becoming a member of the Argentinean parliament between 1993 and 1997.
During the nineties he directs The Journey / El Viaje (1992) about a young man living in a cold southern village in South America who decides to start a trip looking for his father, and Clouds / La nube (1998), following an eclectic group of actors that struggle to save their theater from being demolished and replaced with a shopping mall. Clouds premieres in the official competition at the Venice Film Festival, winning the award for Best Score. That same year, he wins a special Lifetime Award at the Havana Film Festival.
After the economic and political collapse of Argentina in 2001, Solanas decided to document the country with the non-fiction films A Social Genocide / Memoria del saqueo (2004), The Dignity of the Nobodies / La dignidad de los nadies (2005), Argentina latente (2007) and La próxima estación (2008). The four films addressed the impact of neoliberal politics and globalization in Argentina. A Social Genocide premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004, where he was presented with an Honorary Golden Bear for his lifetime achievement.
In October 2007, Solanas ran for president for the Authentic Socialist Party, and he served as a senator for the city of Buenos Aires between 2013-2019. Last year, he was confirmed Argentine ambassador to UNESCO, where he was currently residing and where he contracted Covid-19. He is survived by his wife Angela, his son Juan, his daughter Victoria and Flexa, and grandchildren.
