Manuel de Pedro (1939-2023)
Born:
October 12, 1939
Died:
December 18, 2023
Born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1939, De Pedro graduated in Philosophy from the University of Comillas, Spain, 1966, and earn a Master in Film at Northwestern University, 1970. He moved to Venezuela in 1971 where he lived until his death in 2023. His career began in the late 1960s with the short fiction film Misa criolla (1967), and then focused on the documentary genre, making various shorts until 1975, when he directed the documentary feature Juan Vicente Gómez y su tiempo (Juan Vicente Gómez and his time). Two other important documentary features were Iniciación de un Shamán (1980), focused on the ancestral rite of the culture of the native peoples, in this case the Yanomami culture; and Un solo pueblo (1985), about the activity of the folkloric musical group of the same name that emerged in 1976 in Caracas and that transcended borders. De Pedro also ventured into fiction films with En Sabana Grande siempre de día (1988) and Trampa para un gato (1994).