Sergio Renán
Encyclopedia
Demographics of Argentina
This article is about the demographic features of Argentina, including population density, ethnicity, economic status and other aspects of the population....
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
Born in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
in 1933, Renán became an accomplished violinist in his teens and, following a minor film role in Mario Soffici
Mario Soffici
Mario Soffici was an Italian born Argentine film director, actor and screenwriter of the classic era.A native of Florence, Soffici moved the Argentina in the 1920s and began acting in 1931 and directing in 1935 on the film El Alma de Bandoneón, working with popular actors of the period such as...
's 1951 drama Pasó en mi barrio (It Happened in My Neighborhood), he joined the theatre as an actor and continued to appear in supporting roles in Argentine cinema. His directorial debut came on the stage in 1970 with his production of Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
's The Maids
The Maids
The Maids is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. It was first performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris in a production that opened on 17 April 1947, which Louis Jouvet directed...
. Following a number of prominent film roles for directors Leopoldo Torre Nilsson
Leopoldo Torre Nilsson
Leopoldo Torre Nilsson , also known as Leo Towers and as Babsy, was an Argentine film director, producer and screenwriter....
and Manuel Antin
Manuel Antín
Manuel Antín is an Argentine film director and screenwriter.Manuel Antin was born in Las Palmas, Chaco Province, in 1926. He first wrote for Argentine television in 1956 and made his directorial debut in 1962 with his first film: La Cifra Impar based on a tale of Julio Cortázar...
, Renán's film script for Mario Benedetti
Mario Benedetti
Mario Benedetti was an Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet....
's novel, The Truce
The Truce (1974 film)
The Truce is a 1974 Argentine film directed by Sergio Renán and co-written with Aída Bortnik, based on the eponymous novel by Mario Benedetti...
, was produced in 1974. Starring Hector Alterio, the May-December romance was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, the first Argentine film so honored.
This success was followed by another adaptation of a novel, Crecer de golpe
Crecer de golpe
Crecer de golpe is a 1977 Argentine film....
(Growing Up Suddenly, 1976), based on Haroldo Conti
Haroldo Conti
Haroldo Conti|thumb|right|150pxHaroldo Conti was an Argentine writer, screenwriter, teacher and Latin professor. On May 5, 1976 he disappeared during the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional military dictatorship, on this day the "Día del Escritor Bonaerense" is held in his honour.- Biography...
's coming-of-age tale. At odds with the right-wing dictatorship
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the name used by its leaders for the military government that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar or la última dictadura , because several of them existed throughout its history.The Argentine...
installed in 1976, Renán nevertheless directed a propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
film, La fiesta de todos, on the 1978 FIFA World Cup
1978 FIFA World Cup
The 1978 FIFA World Cup, the 11th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in Argentina between 1 June and 25 June. The 1978 World Cup was won by Argentina who beat the Netherlands 3–1 after extra time in the final. This win was the first World Cup title for Argentina, who became the fifth...
, played in and won by Argentina
Argentina national football team
The Argentina national football team represents Argentina in association football and is controlled by the Argentine Football Association , the governing body for football in Argentina. Argentina's home stadium is Estadio Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti and their head coach is Alejandro...
. In 1979 he starred as the main character in El Poder de las tinieblas
El Poder de las tinieblas
The Power of Darkness or El Poder de las tinieblas is a 1979 Argentine mystery thriller film directed by Mario Sábato and starring Sergio Renán. The film was nominated at the Festival Internacional de Cine Fantástico in 1982. The film is based on the chapter named "Informe sobre ciegos" from the...
, a dark film with political undertones, telling the story of a man ( Renán) who has discovered a global conspiracy against blind people. Then, in 1980, he directed and took the lead role in Sentimental, and received his first Konex Award
Konex Award
Konex Foundation awards, or simple Konex awards are cultural awards from the Konex Foundation to Argentine cultural personalities.Created in 1980, where conceived as a way to reward the Argentine personalities and institutions of different fields, as well as to stimulate the beginners.Even though...
(the highest in the Argentine cultural realm), the following year.
He starred as himself in Eduardo Calcagno's psychological thriller, Los enemigos (The Enemies, 1983), and adapted another Benedetti novel, Gracias por el fuego (Thanks for the Fire), for the screen in 1984. Following elections in 1983
Argentine general election, 1983
The Argentine general election of 1983 was held on 30 October and marked the return of Democracy after the 1976's dictatorship self-known as National Reorganization Process...
, however, his career declined somewhat, and he mainly directed for the theatre and television in subsequent years. Renán numerous opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic productions during this period at the renowned Colón Theatre included Manon (1984), Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
(1985), Othello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
(1987), Madame Butterfly (1989), Cosi Fan Tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(1990), and The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
(1991-92); he also made his experience as a violinist amenable as part the Konex Foundation's classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
jury in 1989, and in 1995, he was appointed music director of the Colón Theatre.
He was reunited with Eduardo Calcagno in a supporting, semi-autobiographical role as a director struggling with official interference in Calcagno's surreal, 1995 tragedy, El censor. Replaced in his post at the helm of the Colón following elections in 1999, a strike at the opera house helped result in his temporary reinstatement in 2000. Returning to film and the theatre in 2001, he produced French playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is a French dramatist, novelist and fiction writer. His plays have been staged in over fifty countries all over the world.- Life :...
's Enigma Variations
Enigma Variations
Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra , Op. 36, commonly referred to as the Enigma Variations, is a set of a theme and its fourteen variations written for orchestra by Edward Elgar in 1898–1899. It is Elgar's best-known large-scale composition, for both the music itself and the...
, and adapted Spanish writer Juan José Millás
Juan José Millás
Juan José Millás is a Spanish writer and winner of the 1990 Premio Nadal. He was born in Valencia and has spent most of his life in Madrid where he studied Philosophy and Literature in the Universidad Complutense.-Life:...
' La soledad era esto (This Was Solitude) for a 2004 film release.
He returned to film as co-screenwriter and director of Juan José Saer
Juan José Saer
Juan José Saer was one of the most important Argentine novelists of the last fifty years.Born to Syrian immigrants in Serodino, a small town in the Santa Fe Province, he studied law and philosophy at the National University of the Littoral, where he taught History of Cinematography. Thanks to a...
's erotic thriller
Erotic thriller
The erotic thriller is a film and literary sub-genre which consists of a mixture between erotica and thriller. The genre increased in North American popularity from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, before declining in marketability.-1980s:...
, Tres de corazones (Three of Hearts), in 2007.