Pablo César
Pablo César is an Argentine film director, film producer, screenwriter and film professor. He began his filmmaking career in the Buenos Aires independent short film scene shot in the Super 8 format, making more than twenty works between the 1970s and 1980s, among which Del génesis, Ecce civitas nostra —co-directed with Jorge Polaco—and Memorias de un loco stand out. In 1983, César directed his first feature film De las caras del espejo, shot in Super-8. He turned to the 35 mm film format from his second feature onwards, La sagrada familia, an ironic film that works as a critique of the abuse of power, as well as an allegory of the era of the last civic-military dictatorship in Argentina.
César has been a pioneer in developing co-productions between his country and nations in Africa and South Asia. He is the first Argentine director to film co-productions with India, and the only Latin American filmmaker who has directed co-productions with African countries, among them Tunisia, Benin, Mali, Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia, Morocco and Ivory Coast. His first co-productions were the so-called "trilogy of triumphs", inspired by ancient Sufi poems and texts on different mythologies. It is formed by the films Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas, Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas and Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes, filmed in Tunisia, India and Mali, respectively.
In 1994, he released Fuego gris, a film with no dialogues that features 17 original compositions by Luis Alberto Spinetta, the only soundtrack in the musician's career. It was followed by the films Sangre —in which he veered towards a more realistic and autobiographical style— and Hunabkú, shot in El Calafate and the Perito Moreno glacier. César continued to make co-productions on the African continent throughout the 2010s, filming Orillas in Benin, Los dioses del agua in Angola and Ethiopia, El cielo escondido in Namibia, and El llamado del desierto in Morocco. His film Pensando en él was the second co-production between Argentina and India, and depicts the meeting between Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo in 1924. In 2020 he released El día del pez—the first co-production between Argentina and Ivory Coast—which closes a trilogy formed together with Los dioses de agua and El cielo escondido. His most recent film is the documentary Macongo, la Córdoba africana, in which he explores the African roots in the Argentine province of Córdoba. César is currently in post-production on two films shot in 2023: Historia de dos guerreros, a love story between two men in the world of mixed martial arts, and Después del final, biopic about artist and gallery owner Luz Castillo.
César's work—entirely produced in film format— is considered an exponent of independent and auteur cinema, characterized by its poetic, symbolic and contemplative use of the cinematographic language. The content of his films is influenced by his studies on the mythology, ethnology and ethnography of various countries, exploring themes such as postcolonialism, the legacy of African philosophy and cosmogony, the ties between the East and the West, the impact of the Afro-descendant community in Argentina, and the challenging of the traditional representations of Africa and India. In 2023, Página/12 described him as the "only Latin American film director who has dedicated more than 20 years to dealing with African themes." César is a proponent of the so-called "South-South Cooperation", promoting modes of production, distribution and dissemination of films from the Global South that contrast with the mainstream trends. He has been awarded at various film festivals throughout his career, including the BFI London Film Festival, the Huy Film Festival, the Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, the Amiens International Film Festival, and the NiFF Houston Int'l Film Festival. He has been a jury member of several international festivals, including the International Film Festival of India, the Kélibia International Film Festival, the Carthage Film Festival, the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, the Amiens International Film Festival and Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma. César has been a university professor at Buenos Aires' Universidad del Cine since 1992, being one of the first teachers of the institution.
Life and career
1962–1982: Early life and beginnings in the Super 8 format
Pablo César was born on 26 February 1962 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At age 6, he began to make comic books, learning through a mail course as there were no schools where to train. Between the ages of 10 and 13, César edited the Patatus newsletter, selling it at his primary school and even at some local newsstands. In 1975, his older brother José gave him a Super 8 film camera and, since then, he constantly recorded family scenes for two years. Four years later, José died in an accident. In a 2017, César noted the significance of that gift:
It allowed me many things because my adolescence was stolen by the dictatorship, I was 12 years old and a few months after my brother gave me the camera, at the end of 1975, the country was transformed and that was a weapon where I turned my dreams, my nightmares. With all the ignorance on how to narrate a film, since everything was prohibited, there were no film schools, except for the one in Avellaneda, but during 1979 my mother did not want me to travel there because they stopped you all the time, there was nothing, you had to go out and film.
César took his first steps as a filmmaker in the independent short film scene shot in Super-8. Encouraged by his brother José, he made his first short film La diversión del rey in 1975, at the age of 13. In 1977, he filmed 7 titles: Lúgubre venganza, Aventuras en el reino, El espiritista, El caso Mandrox and El medallón. In 1979, he shot Objeto de percepción, La máquina, La viuda negra, Itzengerstein and La visión de Ezequiel.
In those years it was not easy to film in the street, so César resorted to parks or holiday houses. In addition, the only space that existed dedicated to independent short films was the Unión de Cineastas de Paso Reducido, which each Saturday organized meetings at the headquarters of Unione e Benevolenza, in Buenos Aires. There, film debates took place and some short films were screened, of which one was voted to be in the finals. César's first film to compete in the UNCIPAR contest was La máquina, followed by Itzengerstein.
In 1980, he directed the films Apocalipsis, Del génesis and Black Sabath. Del génesis was the first film with which César began to win awards. In 1980, he won first prize in the experimental category of the Ateneo Foto-Cine Rosario, a mention for best editing and third prize in the Mar del Plata Filmmakers Circle contest, and a special mention in UNCIPAR. In 1981, Black Sabbath was exhibited at the meeting of the International Union of Amateur Cinema.
1983–1989: ''De las caras del espejo'' and ''La sagrada familia''
César made his first feature film, De las caras del espejo, in 1983. The film won first prize in the youth category at UNICA. That same year, De las caras del espejo also received the prize for Best Photography at the Jornadas Argentinas de Cine No Profesional, carried out by UNICPAR in the city of Villa Gesell. In 1986, he studied Semiology and Semiotics of Cinema at the University of Paris VIII in Saint-Denis, France.In 1985, the films De las caras del espejo and Memorias de un loco were exhibited for the public at the General San Martín Cultural Center, Buenos Aires. That year, he presented his films De las caras del espejo, Ecce civitas nostra and Memorias de un loco at the Union of Filmmakers of Moscow, in the Soviet capital, later traveling to Kutaisi, Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia, to take part in the Film Festival for Children and Youth held by the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization.
In 1986, César toured Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the German Democratic Republic, where he exhibited De las caras del espejo and the short films Del génesis, Ecce civitas nostra, and Memorias de un loco. That year, De las caras del espejo was awarded the bronze medal at the 30th London Film Festival and the Silver Palm at the 26th Huy World Film Festival, in the Belgian city. On the occasion of the official visit of President Raúl Alfonsín to the Soviet Union in October 1986, the films Ecce civitas nostra and Memorias de un loco were shown on television in the country. Also in 1986, César worked as assistant director of Jorge Polaco in the film Diapasón, also doing it a year later for En el nombre del hijo.
In September 1987, César began shooting La sagrada familia, his second feature film but the first shot in 35mm format, with a script by Juan Carlos Vezzulla. The film was shot for the most part in an abandoned silo in the port area of Buenos Aires, with exteriors filmed in other locations on the outskirts of the city. La sagrada familia was released commercially in Argentina on July 1, 1988. In 1988, it received the Jury Prize at the International Film Festival of Figueira da Foz, Portugal. It was also presented at the International Week of Author Film in Málaga, Spain, in May 1989, where it received the Audience Award for Best Film. In Argentina, La sagrada familia competed at the 1988 First Film Festival of Bariloche, where it won awards for Best Male Performance, Best Camera Work, and Best Scenography. López and Cesio were once again awarded at the Film Festival of Santa Fe. In 1989, La sagrada familia received the award for Best First Feature at the Lauro Sin Cortes Awards, organized by the Sin Cortes film magazine.
In 1989, César served as artistic advisor to Jorge Polaco for the film Kindergarten. From July 29 to August 5 of that year, the director was part of the official jury of the Kélibia International Film Festival, Tunisia, where he screened La sagrada familia out of competition. At the conclusion of the festival's activities, César was one of the signatories of the Manifesto for the Dissemination of Independent Short Films together with the filmmakers Laurent Huet, Denis Laplante, Michel Lomet, Darvish Hayatu, Michel Ionascu, Richard Kaplan, Idriss Diabaté, Viola Shafik, Nick Deocampo and Taoufik Abid, among others. This document was distributed to the official authorities of the countries of the signatories, demanding the presence of independent films in broadcast spaces such as cinema and television. This visit to Tunisia was César's first trip to the African continent and from there the idea of making a film in co-production between both countries was born.