HECTOR BABENCO

(7 February 1946 - 13 July 2016)

The Argentinian-born Brazilian film director, producer, writer and actor worked in films from 1973 with his documentary on racing driver Emerson Fittipaldi. His first feature was King of the Night (1975), about a man in Săo Paulo who has affairs with two daughters of his mother’s friend. Mainly dealing with social or political problems, Babenco became better-known through Pixote (1980), about street boys and their sexual relationship; Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1985) with William Hurt and Raul Julia as two men in prison, one for political activities and the other for illicit underage gay sex; Ironweed (1987) with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep as a couple in the Great Depression; At Play In the Fields of the Lord (1990), about two Amazon Basin explorers, with Tom Berenger and John Lithgow; and Carandiru (2003), on a prison massacre in a Latin American jail. His last film was My Hindu Friend (2007), which concerned a dying film director and starred Willem Dafoe.

MICHAEL DARVELL