Rafael Filippelli

Rafael Filippelli (24 November 1938 – 22 March 2023) was an Argentine film director, producer and screenwriter.

Rafael Filippelli
Born	24 November 1938 (1938-11-24) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	22 March 2023 (2023-03-23) (aged 84) Buenos Aires, Argentina

Life and career

Born in Buenos Aires, Filippelli started working as assistant director in the mid-1950s, and in 1961 he directed his first short film, Porque hoy es sábado.^[1][2] A member of the group "Underground", together with, among others, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Néstor Lescovich, Miguel Bejo [es] and Bebe Kamin [es], following the 1976 Argentine coup d'état he moved to exile in Mexico and later in Los Angeles.^[2][3] Returned to Argentina, in 1985 he made his feature film debut with Hay unos tipos abajo, which was followed by The Absentee, which entered the Moscow International Film Festival.^[1] In the 1990s, he directed a film trilogy dedicated to the city of Buenos Aires which mixed documentary and fiction.^[1] In 2007, he was awarded best director at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema for Música nocturna.^[1]

Filippelli was also a film critic and theorist, and served as professor of screenwriting at the Universidad del Cine from its foundation until his death.^[1] He died of complications from a minor surgery on 22 March 2023, at the age of 84.^[1][2] He was married to writer Beatriz Sarlo, with whom he often collaborated.^[1][2]