Cuba Mourns the Death of Argentine Filmmaker Adolfo Aristarain

The International Festival of New Latin American Cinema lamented today the passing of the prominent Argentine filmmaker Adolfo Aristarain at the age of 82. He was the author of a vast and award-winning body of work that earned him multiple accolades.

He died this Sunday in Buenos Aires, according to the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain, an institution that considers him a key creator for Argentine and Spanish filmography over the last decades.

His departure represents another harsh loss for Argentine and Ibero-American cinema, added the prestigious festival based in Havana, Cuba.

Aristarain told vitalist, evocative, sensitive, and brilliant stories, the Spanish Academy highlighted on its official website, while also recognizing the importance of the seventh art in the creator's life.

“He belongs to a generation that lived through cinema: they fell in love with fantastic women, they felt like heroes, they were able to lie and murder without punishment… Cinema is part of his life; it is real, it is not fiction.”

The filmmaker infused his art into numerous productions, including Un lugar en el mundo (Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film), Lugares comunes (Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), Tiempo de revancha, La ley de la frontera, Martín (Hache), and Roma, his final work.

In 2024, he became the first Argentine director to receive the Gold Medal from the Academy of Film, for being one of the fundamental names in the history of Spanish-language cinema.

Furthermore, he was a prominent representative of the essential Argentine cinema, which has contributed so much to our cinematography.