''Toss Me a Dime'' () is a 1960

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

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 a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

, 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, lit. "Holy Faith") 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 t ...

. 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 () is an List of film festivals, international film festival that takes place every November in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. It is the only competitive feature festival recognized by the FIAPF ...

Production history

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

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

to study film-making at the

Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia The (; CSC), also referred to as the (), is an Italian national film school headquartered in Rome, with satellite educational hubs in five other Italian regions. It was established in 1935 and aims to promote the art and technique of cinemat ...

, from 1950 to 1953. In 1956 he returned to Santa Fe, to form the Film Institute at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral 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 digital video camera, which typically must be film editing, edited to create a motion picture, digital video, video cli ...

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 either; '' homographs''—words that mean different things, but have the same spelling (regardless of pronunciation), or '' homophones''—words that mean different things, but have the same pronunciat ...

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

ents Ents are giant humanoids in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of 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 o ...

). 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 (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

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 Argentine short documentary films 1960 short documentary films {{1960s-Argentina-film-stub