The eleventh edition of the Platino Awards, which reward the best of Ibero-American cinema and series, has already decided who will win the distinction of the 2024 Platinum Honor Award: the Argentine actress Cecilia Roth. Mexico will be the city that will host the event in which Roth’s “outstanding” career full of notable collaborations will be recognized: Pedro Almodóvar, Iván Zulueta, Adolfo Aristaráin and Marcelo Piñeyro are some of the names that appear on his long list of collaborations.
He was born in Buenos Aires, 1956, and nineteen years had to pass before Roth had the opportunity to make his film debut in 1975, with Don’t touch the babe, by Juan José Jusid and Crecer de corazón by Sergio Rená. His arrival in Spain, two years after his debut, occurred as a result of an Argentine dictatorship from which Roth was fleeing.
His participation in The Green Prairies (1979) by José Luis Garci, La Familia, Bien Gracias (1979) by Pedro Masó and in Arrebato (1979) by Iván Zulueta resulted in: establishing himself as a cult figure in auteur cinema, muse of the Madrid Movida. In case there were any doubts about his status, his collaboration with Almodóvar, with whom he filmed Pepi, Luci, Bom… y otros chica del hemp (1980), Laberinto de Pasiones (1982) and Entre tinieblas (1983), was a solid presentation to the cultural panorama of the moment.
Television also gave Roth the opportunity to test his acting skills on the small screen with the series The Adventures of Pepe Carvalho (Adolfo Aristarain, José Manuel Larraz, 1984) or the television film Todo va mal (Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 1984). Back in Argentina, already as an established actress, she starred in Deadly (1986), by Adolfo Aristarain, who would become a regular accomplice with whom she collaborated throughout her filmography. Examples of this complicity are A Place in the World (1992), alongside José Sacristán, or Martín (Hache) (1997), which made her the first non-Spanish actress to win the Goya.
The 1997 Goya would not be the only one that Roth would treasure. Her participation in All About My Mother, again with Almodóvar, Oscar for best international film in 1999, earned her international recognition in addition to awards such as her second Goya or the award for best actress in European cinema of the year. The director from La Mancha of Todo sobre mi madre soon collaborated again with the Argentinian in projects such as The Passenger Lovers (2012) or the award-winning Pain and Glory (2018).
Roth has continued adding projects such as the Spanish series El Embaradero (Alex Pina, Esther Martínez Lobato, 2019) and the recent La Mesías, by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. The Angel (Luis Ortega, 2018) or Family Crimes (Sebastián Schindel, 2020) are the most recent films that have featured him.
All the projects mentioned make up a more than notable career, awarded on several occasions, such as the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2009) awarded by the Ministry of Culture or the tribute of the Malaga Film Festival with a retrospective in its edition. 2019. To his award-winning career is now added the Platinum Honor Award that will be presented at the Xcaret park in Riviera Maya on April 20.
