Maximiliano Schonfeld

Maximiliano Schonfeld was born in 1982, in Crespo, Entre Ríos, Argentina. He moved to Buenos Aires where he graduated from ENERC (Escuela Nacional de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica). Between 2011 and 2012 Maximiliano wrote and directed the TV series ANDER EGG and EL LOBO (The Wolf). Previously, he directed three short films: ESNORQUEL, ENTRELUCES and INVERNARIO. In 2012 Maximiliano wrote and directed GERMANIA, produced by Pasto with the support of the INCAA, Hubert Bals Fund and the government of Entre Ríos. GERMANIA was awarded with a Special Jury Award at Bafici (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente), and received the Best Film and Best Director awards at the International Film Festival in Punta del Este. In 2013 Schonfeld was invited to participate at the DOX:LAB, program held by the Copenhagen Film Festival, for which he directed the medium-length AUSTER, with Estonian director Kadri Kõusaar. In 2015 he directed his second feature film LA HELADA NEGRA (The Black Frost), with the support of the INCAA and Doha Institute, premiered at the Berlinale Panorama Section. Also competed at Toulouse FF, La Habana FF, Hong Kong and Haifa FF among others. In 2016 he produced and directed his first documentary LA SIESTA DEL TIGRE with the support of the INCAA and it was World Premiere in the International Competition DocLisboa Film Festival and then the film was in more than 20 festivals. JESÚS LÓPEZ is his third fiction feature film. He is currently writing the television series VERTIENTES DEL PARANÁ with Selva Almada, Florencia Álvarez y Alejandro Millán Pastori. He is also in the process of post-production his second documentary BIG SHADOW.

Director’s statement

“The death of Jesús López is symptomatic of a model of life in the towns of Entre Ríos. The family farms have disappeared and only a soybean desert remains. In a wasteland left by any death, the young people of today seek to build their identity, to resist in a place where the neoliberal model leaves them excluded and forces them to leave for the big cities. JESÚS LÓPEZ is a film about collective grief, especially in adolescents, and how in some way this pain materializes in routine, in everyday acts. Grief also triggers a constant search for dialogue with the afterlife, with the mystery, and detachment somehow becomes the only possible way out when tragedy invades, abruptly and silently.”