Masterclass with Documentarian Ignacio Agüero

Free and open to the public! Please register here. 

Joseph McShane Campus Center Multipurpose Room 112, Rose Hill, Fordham University

Celebrated Chilean filmmaker Ignacio Agüero will offer an account of his trajectory and career which spans almost five decades, prompted by a variation of a question he has himself posed to his fellow-Chilean filmmakers: What is cinema?

In 1985, during Pinochet’s military dictatorship, Ignacio Agüero went out on the streets and to the locations and sets used by his fellow filmmakers, and asked them: Why are you making this film? Who is it for? Agüero’s Como me da la gana (This is the Way I Like It, 1985) is a kaleidoscopic view on the powers of making films in times of political urgency. Thirty years later, in Como me da la gana II (2016) and under democratic times, he posed a similar question to his younger colleagues: What is cinema for you? What is the essence of cinema? In this Masterclass it is now his turn to answer these questions.

About the Filmmaker

Born in 1952, in Santiago, Chile. Agüero studied architecture and then began studying film the year after the military coup, when most filmmakers were going into exile. He made his first films under the Pinochet dictatorship, up to One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train (1988). During all those years he worked in advertising, until he co-directed the famous television campaign for the “No” vote in the referendum that defeated Pinochet in 1988. Agüero is most recognized as the author of nearly twenty documentaries. But he has also made telefilms and has been an actor in numerous films, including several by Raúl Ruiz. Retrospectives of his work have been held in various countries, such as Mexico, Spain, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, New Zealand, and France. He has received numerous awards, including the Grand Prix at FIDMarseille in 2016 and 2019 as well as best Latin American film at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 2019. He holds the title of full Professor at the University of Chile. He also participates in the Zéro en Conduite organization doing film workshops for children. Agüero’s most recent work is Notes for a film (2022) and he is currently developing a new project titled Letters to my dead parents.