Overview
- Puenzo’s death in Buenos Aires at 80, confirmed Tuesday by the authors’ society Argentores, followed years out of public view for health reasons as no specific cause was released.
- He directed The Official Story, which won the 1986 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the first Academy Award for an Argentine movie, with a screenplay co-written with Aída Bortnik that was also nominated.
- The film helped spotlight the dictatorship-era theft of babies from detained mothers, turning a national trauma into a widely seen story through mainstream cinema.
- Beyond directing, he helped draft Argentina’s 1994 Film Law that granted the national film institute INCAA financial autonomy and a steady funding stream, spurring a surge in local production.
- He later co-founded the Argentine film academy and served as INCAA president from late 2019 to April 2022, after an international career that included Old Gringo, The Plague and the 2004 feature The Whore and the Whale, as well as producing work that backed younger filmmakers, including his daughter Lucía.