Manuel Antin, an important figure of the Festival

Antin will be paid tribute in the first edition of the Festival due to his distinguished career and his major contribution towards the definitive end of censorship in Argentine cinema.

In addition to his remarkable career as a filmmaker, novelist, poet, playwright, producer, screenwriter and teacher, Manuel Antin was a key figure in the return of democracy. After being appointed Director of the National Institute of Cinematography (INC) in 1983, he got the first decree signed by Alfonsín to be that dissolving the Entity of Film Rating, the organization responsible for censorship in cinema. The decree not only allowed for the removal of an anti-democratic State policy, but also offered filmmakers a framework for freedom of expression and protection of their work, previously conditioned by the entity and its censors.

As head of the INC, Antin’s management encouraged the reopening of film schools and was a cornerstone for the creation of the Audiovisual Design Degree of the University of Buenos Aires, thanks to an agreement signed by the INC and the School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (FADU).

Manuel Carlos Antin was born in Las Palmas city, Chaco Province, on 27 February 1926. As a film director he made 12 fiction feature films, being La cifra impar (1962), Intimidad de los parques (1965) and Don Segundo Sombra (1969). Besides being the director of the National Institute of Cinema, he founded the University of Cinema in 1991. He’s currently a member of the Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences.