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Argentine filmmaker Fernando Solanas died at dawn on Saturday (7), in Paris, at the age of 84. He had been hospitalized for more than a week after becoming infected with the coronavirus. By a sad coincidence, he died in the city that was the scene of one of his most beautiful productions: “Tangos – O Exílio de Gardel” (1985), a musical that deals with the life of a group of Argentines exiled in France during the last military dictatorship ( 1976-1983).
Solanas has always been an artist engaged and concerned with the political issues of his time. His cinema was marked by denunciation, both of repression in the years of the dictatorship and of the situation of poverty in which many Argentines lived during democracy, especially after the 2001 crisis. Environmental issues also moved him, and he made films that denounced exploitation of natural resources in an irregular way.
Ex-candidate for president, ex-deputy and ex-senator, Solanas was in France as ambassador of Argentina to Unesco. His last official act was a visit to Pope Francis, at the Vatican, to talk about poverty and climate change.
Read more in Folha de S.Paulo.
