Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes

Israel Adrián Caetano (born 1969 in Montevideo, Uruguay) is an Uruguayan-Argentine film director, producer and screenplay writer.

He’s often credited as Adrián Caetano. He works mainly in the cinema of Argentina and at times obtains funding for his films in Europe. He lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

At age of sixteen his family moved to Córdoba, Argentina. When older he shot several short videos including Visite Carlos Paz, and Calafate.

In 1995 Caetano won a prize in a script contest he entered. The money won allowed him to film the short Down Hill (Cuesta abajo), his first work filmed in 35mm. Pizza, Beer, and Cigarettes (1998, co-directed with Bruno Stagnaro) followed. The film was well received at the various film festivals it screened.

In 1996 Caetano won a Media Arts Fellowship, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.

Caetano also directs television commercial and programs.

In 2005 Caetano returned to Uruguay to shoot the mini-series Uruguayos Campeones for television.

ilm critic Manohla Dargis, writing for the Los Angeles Times, calls Caetano “a leading figure in the new Argentine cinema.” She notes that Caetano’s first feature, the 1998 release of Pizza, Beer, Cigarettes, helped jump-start a “New Argentine Cinema.”

His first full length film, Bolivia (2001) was well received by film critics. Yet, it took three years to produce the film due to budget constraints.

His film Chronicle of an Escape, the true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina’s military death squads during the 1970s, was released in 2006. The film was a major box office success in Argentina, and was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. It has won and been nominated for numerous awards. —Wikipedia