Margot Benacerraf
Writing
Biography
Margot Benacerraf was a Venezuelan film director. She studied at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques in Paris and is best known for her 1959 award-winning film Araya. Founder of the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela in 1966 and its director for three years consecutively. She was a member of the board of directors of Caracas Athenaeum, and in 1991, with the help of the writer and patron of the Latin American cinema Gabriel García Márquez, created Latin Fundavisual, the foundation in charge of promoting Latin American audiovisual art in Venezuela.
Known For
"Araya" is an old natural salt mine located in a peninsula in northeastern Venezuela which was still, by 1959, being exploited manually five hundred years after its discovery by the Spanish. In images, the life of the "salineros" and their archaic methods of work before their definite disappearance with the arrival of the industrial exploitation.
Araya
Beginning with his childhood and covering the many facets that characterized his intellectual universe, this documentary details the different aspects of the most important venezuelan writer of the 60s, 70s and 80s: José Ignacio Cabrujas.
Cabrujas en el país del disimulo
A documentary on Venezuelan filmmaker Margot Benacerraf, who won the Cannes International Critics Prize with her movie Araya in 1959.
Madame Cinéma
Directed by Margot Benacerraf, Reverón is a poetic and visually striking documentary that delves into the life and artistic vision of Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón. Set in the sun-drenched coastal landscape of Macuto, where the artist lived in near isolation, the film captures his eccentric lifestyle and unique creative process. Through evocative imagery and a contemplative narrative, Reverón explores his deep connection to nature, his experiments with light and texture, and his profound artistic genius. This seminal work stands as a tribute to one of Venezuela’s most influential painters and a landmark in Latin American documentary filmmaking.