Argentine filmmaker Octavio Getino died today at the age of 77, victim of cancer. Born August 6, 1935 in León, Spain, Getino became one of the leading figures and protagonist of the vigorous political and social cinema of South America in the late sixties and the seventies.

In 1968, along with Fernano "Pino" Solanas, he directed La hora de los hornos / The Hour of the Fournace, the epic milestone film, a three-part, four-hour-plus indictment of the neocolonialist exploitation of Argentina. "For the first time", said Getino, “we demonstrated that it was possible to produce and distribute a film in a non-liberated country with the specific aim of contributing to the political process of liberation." 

With Solanas and Gerardo Vallejo he created the Grupo Cine Liberación, an organization that was linked to the creation of the Third Cinema movement, along with Brazilian Cinema Nôvo, Raymundo Gleyzer's Cine de la base, the Cuban Revolutionary cinema, among others. The term Third Cinema was coined in the manifesto "Towards a Third Cinema" which was written by Solanas and Getino and published in 1969 in the Tricontinental cinema journal by the OSPAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. [Click here to read the complete manifesto].

He also directed with Solanas and the Grupo Cine Liberación the documentary films Argentina, mayo de 1969: Los caminos de la liberación (1969); Perón: La revolución justicialista (1971); and Perón: Actualización política y doctrinaria para la toma del poder (1971), and he directed the feature film El Familiar (1975).