Margot Benacerraf, a pioneering Venezuelan filmmaker, passed away today in Caracas at the age of 97. A towering figure in Latin American cinema, Benacerraf’s contributions to the arts transcended borders, leaving an indelible mark on the film industry, even though she directed only two films. Her groundbreaking 1959 film Araya, a poetic documentary-narrative hybrid and a landmark of neorealist cinema, premiered in the official Palme d’Or competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Award.
Benacerraf, a renowned pioneer and feminist filmmaker, inspired and mentored countless artists, writers, and filmmakers around the world. Her films generated international interest in Venezuelan cinema and played a key role in launching the New Latin American Cinema movement. Additionally, she founded Venezuela’s Cineteca Nacional and Fundavisual Latina, institutions focused on film restoration and introducing global cinema to Venezuela.
Born on August 14, 1926, in Caracas, Benacerraf initially aspired to be a writer, studying Philosophy and Literature at the Central University. In 1947, she won the Pan-American Award for an essay on Latin American unity, and the following year, she won an award co-sponsored by Columbia University for a play she wrote. This prize brought her to New York to study theatrical writing, where she discovered her passion for cinema through acting in a student film. This newfound interest led her to move to France in 1950 to study at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris, becoming one of the first Latin American filmmakers to study at the prestigious institution.
In November 1951, Benacerraf paused her studies to create her first film, Reverón, a poetic short about the eccentric Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón. The 20-minute film gained international recognition when it premiered at the 1953 Berlin Film Festival and played at numerous other film festivals including Cannes and Karlovy Vary.
Several years and some setbacks later, Benacerraf planned to make a film about her native Venezuela. Upon exploring the arid northern region, she became fascinated with Araya and its people, choosing this setting for her first feature film. After extensive research in the Seville and Madrid archives, she began filming in 1958.
Araya, a vast salt marsh on a peninsula off Venezuela's northeast coast, had been manually exploited for salt by the Spanish for five centuries. In 1958, industrial mechanization was set to replace manual labor. Benacerraf aimed to document the traditional methods and lives of the salt workers before these changes occurred.
Araya premiered at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, sharing the FIPRESCI Critics’ Award with Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour, and won the Higher Technical Commission’s Award for its exceptional cinematic qualities. It was the first Venezuelan film to win a major award and marked a significant achievement for a Latin American director.
The breathtaking and striking documentary remained largely out of sight for decades until it was released in the United States in a new restoration by Milestone Films in 2009. Richard Brody of The New Yorker described it as "majestic”, “arresting” and of “overwhelming beauty."
After serving three years as the first head of INCIBA, Venezuela’s National Institute for Culture and Fine Arts, Benacerraf founded the Cinemateca Nacional in 1966. Initially a cinematheque, it evolved into a nationwide film society and Venezuela’s first film archive. She also served on the Board of Directors of Caracas’s first art film theater, the Ateneo de Caracas. In 1991, alongside Gabriel Garcia Márquez, she created Fundavisual Latina to promote Latin American audiovisual art in Venezuela.
Benacerraf received numerous honors, including the Venezuelan National Film Award (1995), the Andrés Bello Order (twice), the Simón Bolívar Medal of Honor, the Order of the Italian Government, the Bernardo O’Higgins Order from Chile, and France's National Order of Merit First Class, among other international awards. In February 1987, the Ateneo de Caracas inaugurated the Salon Margot Benacerraf theater in her honor.
