Tuesday, November 6----When Argentinian director Fabian Bielinsky died suddenly this past June at the age of 47, the international cinema world mourned the loss of one of its more blazing contemporary talents. The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival will present the director's final work, a metaphysical thriller with strong spiritual overtones with the evocative title of THE AURA.

Bielinsky started shooting films at the tender age of 13. He later attended the National Cinematographic Institute in his native Argentina. After graduation, he moved up the ranks of the Argentinian film industry, working as an assistant director on several feature films and hundreds of television commercials. The fledgling director won a filmmaking contest sponsored by Kodak, which gave him enough cash to shoot his debut feature. That film, a breezy caper film with a multitude of unexpected twists and turns became an international sensation when it was released in 2000.

The film was NINE QUEENS, and it was at the forefront of the re-emergence of Argentinian cinema after a troubling period of economic decline and cultural negligance. The film became an international success d'estime, winning the 39 year old novice director two Silver Condors (the Argentine Oscar) for his direction and writing by the Argentinean Film Critics Association. The film also won Silver Condor awards as Best Picture, and for cinematography, editing and for its lead actor Ricardo Darin. NINE QUEENS became an international arthouse success and was distributed in the US by arthouse powerhouse Sony Pictures Classics.

Nearly 5 years passed until Bielinsky was ready to try a second feature film (although he did make a few award-winning shorts in the interim). Rumors had spread about the young man's ill health and when information on his newest film was released, pundits commented on the spiritual dimension inherent in the work. The film was named THE AURA, and it reunited the director with his cinematographer Lucio Godoy, his editor Fernando Pardo and his leading actor Ricardo Darin.

Darin plays Espinoza,a shy taxidermist who secretly dreams of executing the perfect robbery. On his first ever hunting trip, in the calm of the Patagonian forest, his dreams are made reality with one squeeze of the trigger. Espinoza accidentally kills a man who turns out to be a real criminal and inherits his scheme: the heist of an armored van carrying casino profits. Caught up in a world of complex new rules and frightening violence, Espinoza's lack of experience puts him in real danger. And he has another, more dangerous liability: he is an epileptic. Before each seizure he is visited by the "aura", a paradoxical moment of confusion and enlightenment where the past and future seem to blend. These attacks appear without notice when he least expects them, just when he needs all his wits about him.

The film became an instant success in his native Argentina, again sweeping the Silver Condor Awards in most major categories, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Actor for Ricardo Darin. The film also won the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at the Havana Film Festival and the Best Director award at the Cartagena Film Festival.

However, within just a few months of the film's international release, Bielinsky, who had long suffered from hypertension, died suddenly from a heart attack in a hotel room in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he had gone for a television advertising project.

His premature death at the age of 47 shocked the international film world. The director, whose films had almost singlehandedly revived the current Argentinian film scene, was only on the international radar for a scant 5 years, leaving in his wake only a handful of shorts and two acclaimed feature films. This was a tragedy not only for his immediate family but for the cinema world, which was robbed of an original talent with great promise for many, many more intriguing films in the future.

South Florida audiences will have the opportunity this week to experience on their own the original and transcendent talents of Fabian Bielinsky, where his final film THE AURA screens today at 7:30pm, Tuesday, November 9 at 9:00pm and Friday, November 10 at 7:00pm, all at the Las Olas Riverfront.

Sandy Mandelberger
Online Festival Dailies Editor