Raúl Ruiz (director) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Raúl Ruiz
Born	Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (1941-07-25)25 July 1941 Puerto Montt, Chile
Died	19 August 2011(2011-08-19) (aged 70) Paris, France
Nationality	Chilean
Other names	Raoul Ruiz
Alma mater	University of Chile
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1963–2011
Style	Drama, comedy, experimental film
Spouse(s)	Valeria Sarmiento ​ (m. 1969)​

Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (also known as Raoul Ruiz) was a famous Chilean filmmaker, writer, and teacher. He was known for making over 100 experimental films, especially in France. He was born on July 25, 1941, in Puerto Montt, Chile, and passed away on August 19, 2011, in Paris, France.

Life and Career of Raúl Ruiz

Early Life and First Films

Raúl Ruiz grew up in southern Chile. His father was a ship's captain, and his mother was a schoolteacher. He started studying theology and law at university but decided to become a writer instead. He wrote 100 plays with help from a special grant.

He learned filmmaking by working in Chilean and Mexican television. He also studied at a film school in Argentina in 1964. When he returned to Chile, he made his first full-length movie, Three Sad Tigers (1968). This film won an important award called the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival in 1969. Ruiz once said that Three Sad Tigers was "a film without a story." It used story elements like a landscape.

Ruiz was different from other Chilean filmmakers of his time. His movies were often more ironic, dream-like, and experimental. In 1973, after a military takeover in Chile, Ruiz and his wife, director Valeria Sarmiento, moved to Paris, France.

Filmmaking in Europe

In Europe, Ruiz became known as an amazing avant-garde filmmaker. He wrote and directed many interesting, unique, and complex films in the 1970s and 1980s. These movies often had very small budgets. Some of his well-known films from this period include Colloque de chiens (1977), The Suspended Vocation (1978), The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1978), Three Crowns of the Sailor (1983), and City of Pirates (1983).

Working with Famous Actors

In the 1990s, Ruiz started making movies with bigger budgets and famous actors. He worked with John Hurt in Dark at Noon (1992) and Marcello Mastroianni in Three Lives and Only One Death (1996). The next year, he directed Genealogies of a Crime starring Catherine Deneuve. This film won the Silver Bear at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.

He also worked with Isabelle Huppert in Comedy of Innocence (2000). The American actor John Malkovich appeared in his film Time Regained (1999), which was based on a famous book by Marcel Proust. Ruiz also made some English-language thrillers like Shattered Image (1998).

Later Career and Legacy

In his last ten years, Ruiz made several low-budget films in his home country, Chile. His last big international success was the Franco-Portuguese movie Mysteries of Lisbon (2010).

Ruiz believed his films should be seen many times, like paintings. He wanted them to have a certain level of complexity. He also taught his own ideas about film theory. He explained these ideas in his books Poetics of Cinema 1 (1995) and Poetics of Cinema 2 (2007). He worked on film projects with students in many countries.

Raúl Ruiz passed away in August 2011 due to a lung infection. He had a liver transplant in 2010 after being diagnosed with a serious tumor. The Presidents of France and Chile both praised his work. His body was returned to Chile to be buried, and Chile declared a National Day of Mourning.

Films Completed After His Death

Ruiz's last finished movie, Night Across the Street (2012), was shown after he died at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. His wife, Valeria Sarmiento, who often worked with him as an editor, completed Lines of Wellington (2012). This was a big historical movie that Ruiz was working on when he died.

Valeria Sarmiento also finished The Wandering Soap Opera, a film Ruiz shot in Chile in 1990 but left unfinished. It premiered in 2017. Another of his early films, The Tango of the Widower and its Distorting Mirror (1967), was restored by Sarmiento and shown in 2020.

A third film by Ruiz, Socialist Realism as One of the Fine Arts, is also being restored and completed by Sarmiento. This film was thought to be lost for many years after the Chilean military takeover in 1973.

Awards and Recognition

Raúl Ruiz received many awards for his films:

• His film Three Sad Tigers won the Golden Leopard award at the Locarno Film Festival in 1969.
• He won a César Award in 1979 for his short film Colloque de chiens.
• Three Crowns of the Sailor won an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983.
• He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his creative work in film in 1983.
• Genealogies of a Crime won the Silver Bear at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival in 1997.
• He was given Chile's National Prize for Performing and Audiovisual Arts in 1997.
• His film Mysteries of Lisbon (2010) won the Silver Shell for Best Director at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. It also won the Louis Delluc Prize for best French film.

Filmography

Images for kids

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  Image from Realismo socialista

See also

In Spanish: Raúl Ruiz para niños