''Tire dié'' (

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Ja ...

) is an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

documentary directed by

Fernando Birri Fernando Birri (March 13, 1925 – December 27, 2017) was an Argentine film maker and theorist. He was considered by many to be the father of the new Latin American cinema. Biography Birri was born in Santa Fe, Argentina. After being involved in ...

and written Birri and seven other writers. The

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

, billed as a "survey film", chronicles the harsh life of lower-class slums in

Santa Fe, Argentina Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz (; usually called just Santa Fe) is the capital city of the provinces of Argentina, province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe, Argentina. It is situated in north-eastern Argentina, near the junction of the Paraná River, ...

. In 2022, it was selected as the 24th greatest film of Argentine cinema in a poll organized in 2022 by the specialized magazines ''La vida útil'', ''Taipei'' and ''La tierra quema'', which was presented at the

Mar del Plata International Film Festival The Mar del Plata International Film Festival ( es, Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata) is an international film festival that takes place every November in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. It is the only competitive feature fest ...

Production history

Fernando Birri, born in Santa Fe in 1925, left at the age of 25 for

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

to study film-making at the

Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia The Centro sperimentale di cinematografia (Experimental Film Centre or Italian National film school) was established in 1935 in Italy and aims to promote the art and technique of cinematography and film. The centre is the oldest film school in ...

, from 1950 to 1953. In 1956 he returned to Santa Fe, to form the Film Institute at the

Universidad Nacional del Litoral The National University of Litoral ( es, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, UNL) is a public university in Argentina. It is based in Santa Fe, Argentina, Santa Fe, the capital of Santa Fe Province. It has colleges and other academic facilities i ...

university, and started filming

footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a ( often special) video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or ...

for his project, ''Tire dié'', over a three-year period. The short film, with a documentary-like approach, is a genuine look into impoverished realities of Argentina in the 1950s. Not definitive in nature, but provides something more valuable – a physical cinematic look into the perspective of a man living what the film portrays. This primary source perspective is invaluable work to study 1950s Argentina. The title, ''tire dié'' is a

homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones (equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition, ...

of the phrase ''tire diez'' ("throw ten

ents Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant. The Ents appear in ''The Lord of ...

). Every day, the children would run along the sides of the moving trains shouting "Tire dié". In response, some passengers laughed, while others just observed, and occasionally one would "throw a dime". The film also interviews a number of adults, whose voices are dubbed by professional actors. The film was released two years after its completion in 1958, which gave time for Birri to film and screen what became his first film, ''La primera fundación de Buenos Aires'' in 1959. A year later, ''Tire dié'' was premiered. The film earned Birri critical acclaim and paved his way for further projects of similar nature, like ''Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires'' (1960) and more famously ''Los inundados'' (1961), which won the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

award for Best First Film.

References

External links

* .
Fernando Birri about «Tire dié», in "Caratula" (spanish)
1960 films Argentine films based on actual events Argentine independent films 1960s Spanish-language films 1960s Argentine films {{1960s-Argentina-film-stub