Jorge Giannoni

Who was Jorge Giannoni?

Jorge Gianonni was an independent Argentine filmmaker.

One of the milestones of his career on film was his collaboration in Raymundo Gleyzer’s La tierra quema, shot in Northeastern Brazil; also in Brazil, he collaborated with Glauber Rocha in his Terra em transe. Gianonni studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and worked next to Federico Fellini in his film Roma. As a RAI correspondent in Paris, Gianonni witnessed the events of May 1968. Within that context he concluded his avant-garde underground film Molotov Party, of which no copies survived. He also produced and directed Palestina, otro Vietnam and Las vacas sagradas, an anti-government film denouncing the economic policies of the Argentine dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía.

Within a context of great political agitation, Giannoni returned to Argentina in 1974. In Buenos Aires, he created the Instituto de Cine del Tercer Mundo, which was then merged with Raymundo Gleyzer’s Cine de la Base. Shortly thereafter the University of Buenos Aires was pressured by the government of Isabel Perón to close the Institute, and he had to leave the country for Peru, and then Cuba, where he resided until his return to Argentina in 1983. Gianonni died in Buenos Aires in 1995.