Fabián Bielinsky (3 February 1959 – 29 June 2006) was an Argentine film director.
Career
Fabián Bielinsky was born in Buenos Aires on February 3, 1959. He started to make films while a student at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires. At thirteen years old, in 1972, he made his first short film, based on the short story Continuity of the Parks by Julio Cortázar. After graduation from high school, he started studying psychology, before dropping out in favor of enrolling in the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts's film school. He graduated in 1983 with a short film called La espera, based on a story by Jorge Luis Borges. The short earned him a prize at the Huesca International Film Festival in Spain.
Bielinsky entered the film industry around 1983 as an assistant director, working under such filmmakers as Miguel Pérez, Carlos Soria and Eliseo Subiela. He also worked on a Mégane commercial that Wim Wenders was filming in Argentina. Bielinsky wrote the script for the 1998 film La sonámbula, recuerdos del futuro (released abroad as Sleepwalker), directed by Fernando Spiner. By 1998, he had worked as assistant director on several feature films and more than 400 TV commercial projects.
Bielinsky directed his first film, Nine Queens () in 2000, a crime thriller about a scam involving forged stamps. The film was critically acclaimed both in Argentina and abroad, and earned seven Silver Condor awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, as well as 21 more prizes internationally.
Personal life and legacy
Bielinsky was married and had one child. A month before Bielinsky was going to present The Aura at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, he died from a heart attack in his sleep in São Paulo, Brazil, while casting for an advertisement.