Renée Oro (1900 — date of death unknown) was an Argentine director and producer who specialized in documentary filmmaking and was mainly active during the silent era of the 1920s. Oro was in charge of the direction, financing, distribution and promotion of her films, which focused on propaganda, geography and local customs. She began her career through the company Arata y Pardo, co-founded by fellow filmmaker Roberto R. Arata, whom she married in the 1930s. Through the promotion of her personal image in the press, Oro soon managed to outshine the company and make a name for herself as a filmmaker. In 1922, she released La Argentina, focused on her country, and after showing it successfully in Chile, she developed a series of films there for President Arturo Alessandri.
After returning to Argentina in 1926, she made a series of documentaries focused on different provinces of the country, which were commissioned by their respective governments. In addition to being screened in the country, these films were made to be sent to different world's fairs and exhibited in the Argentine pavilion; Oro herself was sent as the country's delegate on a few occasions. In 1927, she released a documentary focused on different South American countries titled Las Naciones de América, a film she continued to modify and screen well into the 1930s. In 1931, she also returned to propaganda filmmaking in a documentary commissioned by de facto President José Félix Uriburu.
Oro's career stalled in the 1930s and the last known of her was a failed attempt to produce a biopic on Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1939. As of 2022, only three of her films are known to have survived: Tacna y Arica (1924), Las Naciones de América (1927) and Evolución y progresos de la provincia de Santiago del Estero (1927). The latter two were rediscovered in the INCAA's cinematheque archive in 2021, which prompted the first extensive research about her life and career. Since then, Oro has been revalued as a pioneer of Argentine cinema. Her role as a woman filmmaker and as a businesswoman has been celebrated since the documentary genre was almost entirely dominated by men. She is arguably the most prolific woman filmmaker of the silent period in Argentina and possibly Latin America as a whole.
Life and career 1900–1923: Early life and career beginnings
Most of Renée Oro's biographical data is unknown. In a 2022 research by Lucio Mafud, it was found that she was born in 1900 and was of Argentine nationality, as indicated by the record of a ship that she took from Buenos Aires to Montevideo in 1938. In the 1930s, Oro married documentary film producer Roberto R. Arata and, according to some sources, she had previously worked at his production company as a typist. This company was called Arata y Pardo and was founded in 1919 by brothers Roberto and Antonio Arata along with Felipe Pardo. It mainly focused on making films for private companies and government agencies, although it also made some documentaries on aviation.
Oro's appearance in the field of documentary filmmaking was through Arata y Pardo. In April 1922, she traveled to Europe together with Roberto R. Arata to screen a new film called La Argentina, which showcased "national customs, landscapes and industries". According to La Prensa, they also traveled in order to film scenes for fiction films that would be starred by Oro and directed by Arata. Although they failed to attract European investment for their fiction films, Oro and Arata managed to draw the attention of the Argentine press after La Argentina was screened in Madrid for King Alfonso XIII and the Spanish aristocracy, and in Paris with the support of the newly elected president Marcelo T. de Alvear.
Upon returning to Argentina, several newspapers published a portrait photograph of Oro which presented her as a luxurious movie star. As noted by Mafud: "Her first and last name, which seemed to be confused with an artistic pseudonym, were perfectly suited to this representation, since the adoption of the French variant of the name René gave it an exotic character, and her last name accentuated the brightness and status implicit in the portrait ['Oro' means 'gold' in Spanish]. Although she was characterized in the press as an 'actress and director', she had never acted in any film."
Oro took advantage of the promotion that La Argentina and her own image had in the press, which increasingly emphasized her role as filmmaker and relegated the name of the production company. Since the film did not have a commercial release on the typical exhibition circuit, Oro used this promotion to organize a series of special presentations for politicians, the upper classes, the press and the educational authorities during 1922, and also undertook a tour of the interior of the country in 1923. This series of screenings gave prestige to the film and increased its profitability, since they were announced and commented on by different media. For example, Oro got La Argentina to be screened in schools, penitentiaries, and functions sponsored by provincial governments.
1923–1925: Propaganda work in Chile
In late 1923, Oro travelled to Chile to present La Argentina and upon arrival shot an actuality film of president Arturo Alessandri's tour to the cities of Chillán, Concepción and Talcahuano, with both films premiering at Splendid Theatre in Santiago on December 29 of that year. Known as Jira al sur del Sr. Alessandri, this short film kickstarted an extensive production of documentaries that Oro undertook in Chile under the patronage of President Alessandri. In January 1924, she began the production of La reina del Pacífico (also released as La perla del Pacífico), a five-act documentary promoting Alessandri and showing various cities and landscapes of Chile. It premiered at Splendid Theatre on 26 June 1924 and received rave reviews by the Chilean press. El Mercurio considered it the "greatest effort that has been made in Chile in cinematographic matter", while La Nación described it as a "work executed with an excellent artistic conscience that disappears, through a skilful distribution of the frames, that monotonous and insipid aspect that most of the descriptive reels tend to have."
Shortly after the release of La perla del Pacífico, the Chilean government commissioned Oro to make two short documentary films about the Italian prince Umberto II's state visit to Chile in August 1924. Unlike La Argentina or La perla del pacífico, these films "had to be filmed and released with some haste to satisfy public interest and to compete for the scoop against other film companies"; La llegada del Príncipe Humberto a Chile premiered on 23 August, two days after the official reception of the prince was filmed, and Su Alteza Real Humberto de Savoia en territorio chileno premiered on 30 August, six days after the military parade in Parque Cousiño was filmed. For the former film, Oro enlisted three cameramen and used locomotives, automobiles, and airplanes to record the arrival of the Italian prince.
Also in 1924, Oro made the propaganda feature film Tacna y Arica. Focused on the regions of Tacna and Arica, it was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be sent to Washington, D.C. in order to "validate Chilean territorial control over those provinces that were in dispute with Peru since the War of the Pacific and whose sovereignty was going to be settled, at that time, at the discretion of the US president." Nevertheless, it first premiered in Santiago on 23 December 1924. The following day, El Mercurio praised the film as: "from a technical point of view, one of the greatest successes of national cinema. Everything in it is correct, and framed within a severe line of perfection that surpasses many of the productions of the same nature that have come to us from abroad."
Oro's career was soon impacted by the transformations in Chilean politics. On 4 September 1924, a military uprising forced Congress to pass a series of progressive laws that the oligarchic political class had refused to pass. The military then demanded that Alessandri dissolve the Congress, but he refused and had to go into exile, with a Military Junta assuming power. On 23 January 1925, a new coup d'état dismissed the Military Junta and allowed Alesssandri to return to finish his term. Oro accompanied Alessandri in part of his exile. In March 1925, an article in Argentine newspaper Última Hora showed the filmmaker traveling on the luxurious ship that Alessandri had reportedly used on his recent trip to Europe; she was heading to Rio de Janeiro to film his trip back to Chile from that city. Titled El viaje de Excmo. señor Alessandri desde Río de Janeiro hasta Chile, this short film showed the "triumphant trip" of the president, beginning with the reception given to him by the Brazilian government, his passage through the cities of São Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Mendoza, among others, and finally his arrival at La Moneda Palace. It was released commercially on 20 March 1925, two hours after the president's arrival in Chile, and was screened again the following day with the addition of the images of Alessandri arriving at La Moneda.
Oro's final Chilean film was El corazón de los Andes, which was only screened in Santiago on 28 April 1925. It showcased various cities and areas of Argentina and Chile, including the Argentine beach resorts of Mar del Plata and Necochea, as well as Southern Chile. Oro's career in Chile came to an end after Alessandri's resignation on 1 October, after which she returned to Argentina a few days later. Mafud wrote: "The gradual weakening of Alessandri's political power and his subsequent resignation from the presidency as a result of tensions with sectors of the Army that were part of the same government probably contributed to the end of a film production that was at the service of his politics and was sponsored by his government."
1926–1930: Resumption of her career in Argentina
Upon her return to Argentina in 1926, Oro resumed her work as film director and businesswoman in the country, making a series of documentaries for the national government and that of different provinces. In January, La Razón reported that she would make a film at the request of the police of the city of Buenos Aires, although no evidence has been found that it was actually filmed. In November, she shot two documentaries requested by the governments of Santa Fe Province and Entre Ríos Province. These were Actividades de la Provincia de Santa Fe, which premiered in early December 1926 at the Colón theatre of Santa Fe; and Entre Ríos, sus industrias y su progreso, which was screened on 30 December 1926 at the Cine Palace 9 de Julio in Paraná.
Throughout 1927, Oro made at least three more documentaries at the request of the provincial governments of Corrientes, Santiago del Estero and Salta. The first one was Evolución y progresos de la provincia de Corrientes, which was finished in mid-February 1927 and premiered in April at the Teatro Vera in Corrientes. In August, the government of Corrientes ordered that screenings be organized for students of the province's schools, the general public and in neighboring towns, in order to "promote the wealth of the province". Oro later filmed Evolución y progresos de la provincia de Santiago del Estero and Evolución y progresos de la provincia de Salta, the latter being screened on 30 October 1928 at the Grand Splendid Theatre in Buenos Aires. It is very likely that the director also made documentaries for the provinces of San Juan, Mendoza and Jujuy, although no evidence has been found to confirm it actually happened.