Leonardo Favio

Director | Actor | Writer

Date of birth : 05/28/1938

Date of death : 11/05/2012

City of birth : Mendoza, Argentina

"That's our job: to bear witness to tears, to bear witness to history, to be memory." Leonardo Favio was an Argentine director, singer-songwriter, producer, screenwriter, activist and politician born in the province of Mendoza. After a difficult childhood, he emigrated to Buenos Aires in his youth while initially attracted to cinema, he was discovered by director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson who launched his career in the mid-1950s. Between the 1960s and 1990s, he enjoyed great recognition for his innovative and provocative films, financed through his work as a singer-songwriter. His work, intertwined with his political beliefs, is a fusion of popular culture, avant-garde and kitsch. Exploring national identity and mystique, impossible romances, vulnerability, and the pressures of social constructions Favio's films delve deep into the Argentine psyche and strike a chord with the population as a cult figure. He is celebrated for his unique aesthetic and prolific classics such as "Crónica de un niño solo" (1965), "El Dependiente" (1969), "Juan Moreira" (1973), and "Nazareno Cruz y el Lobo" (1975) that cement his legacy in Argentine cinema.