An interview with Margot Benacerraf: 'Reveron,' 'Araya,' and the institutionalization of cinema in Venezuela

Article Abstract:

The films 'Reveron' and 'Araya' of Margot Benacerraf, a Venezuelan woman director, are considered to be landmarks in Latin American cinema. Although she stopped making films after the 1950s, she was an active promoter of films in Venezuela. She was trained in New York in 1949 by the German theatrical director Erwin Piscator. She then travelled to Paris to study filmmaking at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematografiques (IDHEC). In 1951 after her first year at IDHEC she met Gaston Diehl, an attache at the French Embassy in Venezuela, who convinced her into directing a film on Armando Reveron, the French painter. Her second and last film, 'Araya' won the first prize at the Cannes film festival and was based on life in the Araya peninsula.

Biography, Benacerraf, Margot (Director)

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A descriptive chronology of films by women in Venezuela, 1952-92

Article Abstract:

Participation of women in film producing in Venezuela, which has the third largest percentage of women producers in the world, reached its peak in the 1970s and gradually declined in the 1980s. Margot Benacerraf, one of Venezuela's earliest women directors, produced two films, 'Reveron' (1952) and 'Araya' (1959), which are considered landmarks in Latin American cinema. Venezuela witnessed an economic boom during the 1970s. Increased government funding for national film productions eventually resulted in the New Venezuelan Cinema. The recession in the 1990s led to political upheavals which resulted in the decline in film producing.

Women, Venezuela

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Filming ... 'and the earth did not swallow him': an interview with Severo Perez

Article Abstract:

Filmmaker Severo Perez feels the film he made from Tomas Rivera's story of Chicano migration is a collective voice of an oppressed people. This film was shown on PBS in 1996 and was marketed in Latin America and Europe.

Portrayals, Literature, Racism, Hispanic Americans, Perez, Severo

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