Tire dié (1960)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

Fernando Birri

Writers:

Fernando Birri (writer)
Juan Carlos Cabello (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Plot:

Everyday the children of the neighborhood known as "Tire Dié", in the city of Santa Fe, wait for the train to ask for money...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Latin America | Poverty | Child | Third World

Cast

Guillermo Cervantes Luro
María Rosa Gallo
Francisco Petrone

Runtime:

33 min

Country:

Argentina

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Tire Dié Neighborhood, Santa Fe, Argentina

Company:

Instituto de Cinematografía de la Universidad Nacional del Litoral

A life for a dime

Considered as the first survey documentary, "Tire dié" was originally a photographic essay, proposed by Neo-realist filmmaker Fernando Birri to his students, when he founded the first documentary school in Latin America. The students researched the living conditions in the province of Santa Fe (Argentina), and finally chose one subject for the documentary: the children of the Tire Dié neighborhood, who risked their lives every day, waiting for the passing of a train, to run and beg by the rails, yelling to the passengers "Tire die(z centavos", or "Toss me a dime".) Given the low budget of the production, the filmmakers worked with limited conditions and were forced to re-release the film with added narration to supply the deficiency of the direct sound. Yet it is a moving documentary, and it became one of the founding stones of the "New Latin American cinema" movement in the late 1950s and the Sixties.