1962–1982: Early life and beginnings in the Super 8 format camera in 1981. Pablo César was born on 26 February 1962 in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. At age 6, he began to make comic books, Between the ages of 10 and 13, César edited the
Patatus newsletter, selling it at his primary school and even at some local newsstands. Encouraged by his brother José, That same year,
De las caras del espejo also received the prize for Best Photography at the Jornadas Argentinas de Cine No Profesional, carried out by UNICPAR in the city of
Villa Gesell. In 1986, he studied
Semiology and
Semiotics of Cinema at the
University of Paris VIII in
Saint-Denis, France. That year, he presented his films
De las caras del espejo,
Ecce civitas nostra (15-minute documentary co-directed with
Jorge Polaco) and
Memorias de un loco at the Union of Filmmakers of Moscow, in the
Soviet capital, later traveling to
Kutaisi,
Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia, to take part in the Film Festival for Children and Youth held by the
Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. In 1986, César toured
Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, and the
German Democratic Republic, where he exhibited
De las caras del espejo and the short films
Del génesis,
Ecce civitas nostra, and
Memorias de un loco. That year,
De las caras del espejo was awarded the bronze medal at the 30th
London Film Festival and the Silver Palm at the 26th Huy World Film Festival, in the
Belgian city. On the occasion of the official visit of President
Raúl Alfonsín to the Soviet Union in October 1986, the films
Ecce civitas nostra and
Memorias de un loco were shown on television in the country. Also in 1986, César worked as
assistant director of Jorge Polaco in the film
Diapasón, also doing it a year later for
En el nombre del hijo. In 1988, it received the Jury Prize at the International Film Festival of Figueira da Foz, Portugal. It was also presented at the International Week of Author Film in Málaga, Spain, in May 1989, where it received the Audience Award for Best Film. In Argentina,
La sagrada familia competed at the 1988 First Film Festival of
Bariloche, where it won awards for Best Male Performance (Ariel Bonomi), Best Camera Work (Oscar López), and Best Scenography (Ramiro Cesio). López and Cesio were once again awarded at the Film Festival of
Santa Fe. In 1989, La sagrada familia received the award for Best First Feature at the Lauro Sin Cortes Awards, organized by the
Sin Cortes film magazine. In 1989, César served as artistic advisor to Jorge Polaco for the film
Kindergarten. At the conclusion of the festival's activities, César was one of the signatories of the Manifesto for the Dissemination of Independent Short Films together with the filmmakers Laurent Huet (France), Denis Laplante (Canada), Michel Lomet (Belgium), Darvish Hayatu (Iran), Michel Ionascu (France), Richard Kaplan (USA), Idriss Diabaté (Ivory Coast), Viola Shafik (Germany), Nick Deocampo (Philippines) and Taoufik Abid (Tunisia), among others. This document was distributed to the official authorities of the countries of the signatories, demanding the presence of independent films in broadcast spaces such as cinema and television. This visit to Tunisia was César's first trip to the
African continent and from there the idea of making a film in co-production between both countries was born.
1990–2002: The "trilogy of triumphs" and Fuego gris for the 1994 film
Fuego gris, which featured original music by
Luis Alberto Spinetta. In 1990, César signed a co-production contract with Tunisia to film the film
Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas, becoming the first Latin American director to direct a co-production on the African continent. The Argentine premiere of
Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas coincided with the opening of the Tunisian Embassy in Buenos Aires in April 1991. Interviewed by the newspaper
La Prensa, the Chargé d'Affaires commissioned for the opening of the embassy, Hassine Souki, declared: "Culture already unites us through an agreement signed in 1968 that has borne multiple fruits, the last of which is the cinema, through the recently known co-production of
Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas, by Pablo César. For the soundtrack of the film, César contacted famous musician
Luis Alberto Spinetta, proposing that he provide him with the rights to some songs and, if he wished, that he compose some for the film. Spinetta felt that it was not appropriate to use old songs because "they had been made for other purposes" and, instead, offered César to compose the music for the entire film, based on the already written script. For the
Fuego gris poster, César and Spinetta contacted the artist
Ciruelo Cabral, The film was presented at the 1994 edition of the
International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in
Havana and the
International Film Festival of India (IFFI); and had its Argentine premiere at the Maxi cinema in Buenos Aires on August 26 of that year. , one of the locations of
Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas (1996), the first co-production between Argentina and
India. Originally planned to be shot in
Karnataka state, the film was eventually shot in
Rajasthan. While in
Calcutta presenting
Fuego gris at IFFI (held 0–20 January 1994), César contacted Indian producers to find the location for his next film,
Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas, the second part of the so-called "trilogy of triumphs" that had begun with
Equinoccio, el jardín de las rosas. Antonioni recommended that he shoot
Unicornio, el jardín de las frutas in the state of
Rajasthan, as it suited the characteristics he was looking for. Due to non-compliance on the part of said Indian producer, César traveled to India again and contacted the director Murali Nair, signing a new co-production contract to shoot the film in Rajasthan. The film was a co-production with
Mali and was shot in a
Dogon village called Na-Komo near
Sangha, where the
Bandiagara cliffs are; and in the town of
Gao, in the northwest of the country. César traveled to Mali in January 1997 and met with the National Center for Cinematographic Production (CNPC) in the town of
Hombori, presenting the project of
Afrodita, el jardín de los perfumes to them. Upon returning to Argentina, the material filmed in Gao never reached the director and he was forced to return to the Malian town to shoot the scenes of the film again. The film had its Argentine premiere on December 4, 2003. Much of
Hunabkú was filmed in dangerous conditions, due to the danger of walking on the glacier. In an interview with
Los Andes, the director commented on this: "Luckily there were no accidents. But there is a moment when Lucas (Arévalo), the protagonist, feels attracted by the icy water of the glacier and jumps into it without digital tricks. There were three repetitions of the scene and in two of them the glacier thundered and released a large piece of ice that produced giant waves." The following month, the film was presented at the IFFI, held in the city of
Goa, where César was also a member of the jury. On the occasion of the film, the Argentine Ambassador to Nigeria, Susana Pataro, wrote in September 2010: "Last November, when Pablo César visited the filming locations, we had the opportunity to accompany him on part of the tour of emblematic sites such as the town of Ouidah, from where thousands of slaves left for the Americas. Today it is a peaceful fishing port that can be reached from
Cotonou, (...) after an hour's journey. Until you reach the small beach, you travel along the 'slave route' in a shocking journey of just over 2 km."
Orillas combines two intertwined stories, one set in Benin and the other in Argentina. The filming of the Argentine portion took place in April 2010 and lasted 4 weeks, of which 2 took place entirely on Isla Maciel (neighborhood in
Dock Sud). The Argentine cast of
Orillas was a mix of professional actors—such as Javier Lombardo,
Daniel Valenzuela, and
Dalma Maradona—with young locals from Isla Maciel with no acting experience. During a rehearsal for the film, a neighbor judged the young actors by their appearance and believed he was witnessing a robbery, causing forty police officers to be sent to the location. Orillas premiered in Buenos Aires on 10 November 2011, a year after its completion.
2012–2020: Second trilogy, Pensando en él and El llamado del desierto were one of the locations for
Los dioses de agua (2014), the first co-production between Argentina,
Angola and
Ethiopia. In 2012—invited by the president of INCAA Liliana Mazure for being the only Argentine to direct co-productions with Africa—César joined the trade mission that accompanied President
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to the Argentine Industries Fair in
Luanda,
Angola. There, he began to establish contacts with the Instituto Angolano do Cinema e do Audiovisual (IACA) seeking to co-produce his next film
Los dioses de agua. César made three trips to Angola before signing the co-production contract with IACA, and once to
Ethiopia before doing the same with the company Blue Nile Toon. Filming took four weeks in Angola, ten days in Ethiopia, one week in
Formosa Province and three in Buenos Aires.
Los dioses de agua premiered at IFFI in Goa on 21 November 2014. In 2015, the film won the Best Foreign Film and Best Director awards at the NiFF Houston Int'l Film Festival in
Houston. César summoned the filmmaker Paulo Pécora to record the filming of
Los dioses de agua, originally intended to be a "making-off" to be included as an extra on a DVD release. However, the amount of material that Pécora shot was such that he decided to collect it in the documentary film
Amasekenalo, a "film within a film" that premiered at the General San Martín Cultural Center in 2017. César began looking for potential production partners online after getting the script, eventually meeting Pedro Mendoza of
Namibian production company New Mission Films.
El cielo escondido premiered in Namibia on November 4, 2016, at the
Ster-Kinekor cinema in
Maerua Mall, Windhoek. and for Best Film at the Philadelphia Independent Film Awards (IFAP). '' (2018)—the second co-production between Argentina and India—recounts the meeting between
Rabindranath Tagore and
Victoria Ocampo in 1924. In 2017, César shot
Pensando en él (
Thinking of Him), a film based on the meeting between
Rabindranath Tagore and
Victoria Ocampo in 1924 in Buenos Aires, played by
Victor Banerjee and
Eleonora Wexler, respectively. The idea for the film arose in 2008, when the then Ambassador of India in Argentina, Rengaraj Viswanathan, suggested to César that he tell the story during a visit to the embassy. César has given several conferences on the so-called "South-South Cooperation" (Spanish:
Cooperación Sur-Sur), promoting modes of production, distribution and dissemination of films from the global south that contrast with the mainstream trends. In 2020 he released
El día del pez, the first co-production between Argentina and
Ivory Coast, and the last part of the trilogy formed together with
Los dioses de agua and
El cielo escondido. Due to the context of crisis in national film production, aggravated by the
COVID-19 pandemic, César decided to undertake the project independently. On February 6, the director presented the project in the Salón Verde of the provincial Government House, at a press conference accompanied by the head of the Institute of Culture, Gabriel Romero, and the mayor of Empedrado, José Cheme, together with the actors Alejo Isnardi and Idriss Mousa Sare and the executive producer Pablo Ballester. The film is supported by INCAA and the Institute of Culture of the Government of the Province of Corrientes. With a screenplay by Jerónimo Toubes, the film stars Luz Castillo herself, with a cast that also includes Eleonora Wexler, Héctor Bidonde, Nilda Raggi, Natalia Cociuffo and Alejandro Botto, among others. Speaking to
La Nación on the occasion of the start of shooting, Castillo declared: "I think the film can leave a legacy and show new generations other worlds and values they don't know about (...) I accepted César's proposal because no one is bitter about a sweet and because at 88 years old, someone proposing you to make a film about your life is something as incredibly wonderful as it is unusual. There was no reason to say no." He also announced that he plans to shoot a fiction feature film about
María Remedios del Valle, an Afro-descendant soldier of the
Argentine War of Independence. ==Style and influences==