Sawt Falasteen - Argentine film and theater great Luis Brandoni dies at 86

"Luis Brandoni has died. In 'Beto' we are losing the last leading actor of an unforgettable generation, a driving force for national theater," Rottemberg wrote, calling it a "very sad day for our culture."

Brandoni's body will be taken to the Buenos Aires legislature to lie in state on Monday afternoon.

He was admitted to hospital on April 11 after a fall at home that caused a brain-bleed.

He starred in dozens of films over the course of a prolific career, including "Waiting for the Hearse" (1985) and "The Weasel's Tale" (2019).

He also lit up the stage with hugely successful plays such as "Conversations with My Mother" and "Parque Lezama."

A familiar face for decades on Argentine television, Brandoni starred alongside Robert de Niro in the 2023 Disney+ miniseries "Nada." In the series, he played a curmudgeonly Buenos Aires food critic whose life falls apart after his housekeeper dies, while De Niro played his friend.

Brandoni was active from a young age in the center-left Radical Civic Union (UCR), one of Argentina's oldest political parties.

During Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, when the party was banned, he briefly went into exile in Mexico.

He served two terms as an MP with the UCR in the 1990s and also served as cultural advisor to former UCR president Raul Alfonsin.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST