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Margot Benacerraf

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Margot Benacerraf
Benacerraf in 2012
Born
Margot Benacerraf

(1926-08-14)14 August 1926
Caracas, Venezuela
Died29 May 2024(2024-05-29) (aged 97)
Caracas, Venezuela
OccupationFilm director

Margot Benacerraf (14 August 1926 – 29 May 2024) was a Venezuelan film director. She studied at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies) in Paris and is best known for her 1959 award-winning film Araya.

Life and career

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Margot Benacerraf was born on 14 August 1926[1][2][3] to Jewish immigrants in Caracas.[4] After her graduation from the Central University of Venezuela in 1947, she won a scholarship to further her studies at Columbia University School of the Arts in New York City.[4] She then moved to France for specialized studies in cinema at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris.[1][4][5]

Benacerraf's two best known films, the 1950s documentaries Reverón and Araya, are considered "landmarks of Latin America narrative non-fiction".[6] Reverón illustrates the life of the well-known Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón, and Araya portrays the day-to-day work of the workers of the salt mines of Araya, a village in the east of Venezuela.[7] It was entered into the 1959 Cannes Film Festival,[8] where it shared the Cannes International Critics Prize with Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour.[9][10]

Benacerraf founded the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela in 1966[11] and was its director for three years consecutively. She was a member of the board of directors of Caracas Athenaeum,[1] and in 1991, with the help of the writer and patron of the Latin American cinema Gabriel García Márquez, created Latin Fundavisual, the foundation in charge of promoting Latin American audiovisual art in Venezuela.[5]

Benacarraf died in Caracas on 29 May 2024, at the age of 97.[5]

Awards

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Benacarraf received several decorations among them the Venezuelan National Prize of Cinema (1995), the Order Andrés Bello, the Order Simón Bolivar, Order of the Italian Government, Bernardo O'Higgins Order of the Government of Chile, among others.[4] In February 1987, Ateneo de Caracas inaugurated a movie theater named after her.[12] In 2019, the Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts (VAEA) awarded Benacerraf the Paez Medal of Art 2019 for her life work.[13]

Select filmography

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Uricare, Joy (29 May 2024). "La ejemplar Margot Benacerraf". El Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 May 2024. Además formó parte de la Junta Directiva del Ateneo de Caracas, donde más tarde le dedicarían una sala de cine a la que pusieron su nombre.
  2. ^ Brueggemann, Tom (16 February 2024). "The Oldest Living Director Is a Woman — and Here Are the 24 Other Most Senior". IndieWire. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  3. ^ David, Parkinson (24 February 2024). "The 25 oldest living film directors". British Film Institute. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d Moleiro, Alonso (31 May 2024). "Muere a los 97 años Margot Benacerraf, piedra fundacional del cine venezolano". El País América (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 31 May 2024. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Muere Margot Benacerraf, la famosa directora de Araya". Efecto Cocuyo (in Spanish). 29 May 2024. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  6. ^ Kelly, Gabrielle; Robson, Cheryl (2014). Celluloid Ceiling: women film directors breaking through. Supernoval Books. p. 380. ISBN 978-0-9566329-0-6.
  7. ^ Julianne Burton (1990). "Benacerraf, Margot (1926-)". In Annette Kuhn (ed.). The Women's Companion to International Film. University of California Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-520-08879-5.
  8. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Araya". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 15 September 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
  9. ^ Araya[permanent dead link], Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Accessed online 15 November 2009.
  10. ^ "12th Cannes Film Festival". International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI). Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  11. ^ Abreu, Jesús (2016). "Cincuenta años de la Cinemateca Nacional, la memoria desapercibida" (PDF). Comunicación: Estudios venezolanos de comunicación (175 (3º trimestre)): 10–13. ISSN 0798-1856.
  12. ^ "Caracas Virtual : Centros Culturales : ATENEO". Archived from the original on 26 August 2006. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  13. ^ "MARGOT BENACERRAF is one of the two recipient of VAEA's Paez Medal of Art 2019". VAEA. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
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