- Argentina - Portal público de noticias de la República Argentina.
The national film industry reached its acme last decade with the arrival of young directors making up the “new Argentine theater”. In 2007 Argentina witnessed an unprecedented growth in the cinema industry considering that 92 national films were released in that year. This team of new theatre artists, which was identified with independent theater type of plays, realism and the performance of non-professional actors, embodied a radical shift being praised all over the world. Furthermore, this movement, which was headed by directors like Raúl Perrone, Martín Rejtman and Esteban Sapir, reached the height of its success with Pizza, birra, faso directed by Bruno Stagnaro and Adrián Caetano at the Mar del Plata Festival held in 1997. Shortly afterwards there arose further opera primas like Mundo Grúa (1999) directed by Pablo Trapero, and La ciénaga (2000), which was directed by Lucrecia Martel. The Silver Bear awarded at the Berlín Festival in 2004 to the movie El abrazo partido, which was directed by Daniel Burman, epitomized the full-fledged development of this theater movement. Buenos Aires´ Independent Cinema Festival, gathering over 200.000 spectators in its last edition makes up an outstanding scenario for these new entrepreneurs.
As from the 30´s the Argentine film industry has stood as one of the most remarkable in Latin America, together with that of México and Brazil. The golden age of cinema was marked by the advent of new production companies such as Argentina Sono Film and Lumilton. Manuel Romero, Mario Soffici, Leopoldo Torres Ríos, Carlos Hugo Christensen, Hugo del Carril and Lucas Demare stand as some of the great directors of that time, when remarkable artists such as Carlos Gardel, Niní Marshall, Libertad Lamarque, Luis Sandrini and Tita Merello waked into the Spanish-speaking world. By the end of the 50´s there appeared renowned theater artists like Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, Hugo Santiago, David José Kohon, José Martínez Suárez and Manuel Antín. Two artists gained acknowledgement in the 60´s: Leonardo Favio and Pino Solanas (the latter being awarded the Golden Bear in Berlín in 2004 in recognition of his cinema track record). He directed the emblematic movie known as La hora de los hornos, (The Hour of the Furnaces), which retells the initial popular resistance struggles that took place in Latin America.
With the return of democracy back in 1983, the world once again began to direct its eyes towards the Argentine current state-of-affairs, and authors such as Adolfo Aristarain, María Luisa Bemberg, Eliseo Subiela, Miguel Pereira and Luis Puenzo therefore gained momentum. Thus, the movie La Historia Official (The Official Story) which was directed by Luis Puenzo, was awarded an Oscar for the best foreign language film in 1986.
