Abner Benaim

Abner Benaim (Panamá, 1971) is a Panamanian film director, producer, screenwriter and plastic artist.

Abner Benaim
Born	1971 Panamá, Panamá
Occupation	Director, producer, screenwriter, plastic artist.
Years active	2003–present

Biography

Benaim studied International Relationships at University of Pennsylvania, United States. He then attended Tel Aviv's Camera Obscura film school. Benaim took his first steps in the documentary world with Good Vibes and Round Trip To Panama, showed at Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Los Angeles, Chicago, Nueva York, Miami y Panamá, receiving multiple nominations in several international film festivals.

In 2004 he founded Apertura Films[1] in Panamá City. In 2005 he directed an 11-episode documentary series, El otro lado[2] that won the New York Television Festival Best Documentary Award 2005 and was mentioned by Rolling Stone magazine in its Latinoamerican edition as one of the 100 best TV show of all times.

In 2009 he released Chance[3] beating records in the Panamanian box office with more than 140.000 tickets sold hometown and half a million viewers in the region. Benaim won the 2011 Japan Skip City D-Cinema Festival Best Screenplay Award and his film was acquired by HBO and Ibermedia TV.

Empleadas y patrones, a documentary he directed in 2010, had its premiere at IDFA[4] and was shown in Hot Docs Toronto, London International Film Festival and more than 40 other international festivals.

In 2014 Benaim released Invasion,[5] a documentary about the collective memory forged around the invasion of Panama by the United States in 1989. The film was premiered in Panama's 2014 IFF International Film Festival and won the Audience Best Picture Award and the Latinamerican and Caribbean Best Picture of 2014.

Invasion was selected to represent Panama in the Best Foreign Picture category at the 87 edition of the Academy Awards.[6][7]

In 2015 Invasion won the Best Director Award at the MIFF, the Best Caribbean Documentary Award at the FIQBAC International Film Festival of Barranquilla, Colombia, and the Audience Award at the Málaga Film Festival.

Benaim took part in the collective film Historias del Canal (2014) directing the segment called 1977.[8]

Biencuidao, his most recent project, won the VFF Talent Highlight Pitch Award at the Talent Project Market of 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.[9]

Benaim has taken part in several productions, including films as Life in nature (2002), In the attic (2003), On the bench (2014, Short Plays series), Bulldog Noise (2004) and the book Panamix.

Filmography

• Historias del Canal, segment 1977 (2014)
• Chance (2009)
• In the attic (2003)

Documentaries

• Ruben Blades Is Not My Name (2018)
• Invasion (2014)
• Empleadas y Patrones (2010)
• Bulldog Noise (2004)
• Good vibes (2003)
• Round Trip to Panama (2002)

As producer

• Invasion (2014)
• Empleadas y Patrones (2010)
• Chance (2009) - Coproduced by Matthias Ehrenberg
• El Otro Lado (2005)
• En el Ático (2003)
• Life in Nature (2002)

References

1. "Apertura Films".
2. "La Joya - El otro lado".
3. "Chance". Archived from the original on 2015-09-29. Retrieved 2018-09-30.
4. "IDFA". Archived from the original on 2015-10-01. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
5. "Official Facebook Page".
6. "Hollywood Reporter".
7. "Variety".
8. "Historias del Canal - Official".
9. "Berlinale 2015". Archived from the original on 2015-02-17. Retrieved 2015-09-30.

External links

• Film Office
• IMDb
• Latinamerican Film Blog
• Interview with Abner Benaim in Spanish
• Empleadas y Patrones official site