Babenco was a director, screenwriter and producer. He was born as Héctor Eduardo Babenco and grew up in Argentina. From 1964 to 1968, he lived in Europe and worked on different jobs. That is when he got introduced to Spanish film and started to work as an extra on film sets. In 1969, he decided to live in São Paulo in Brazil. Namely, because he did not want to serve in the army he deserted and thus was not allowed to come back to Argentina. In 1977 he became the citizen of Brazil. Without any formal education in film, together with Robert Farias, he directed the documentary O Fabuloso Fittipaldi (1973) about the life and work of the famous Brazilian car race driver. He made his directing debut with the feature film O Rei da Noite (1975), romantic drama taking place in the 1940’s. His next film, biographical drama Lúcio Flávio, o passageiro da agonia (1977) about the Brazilian bank robber, was quite successful and popular. Babenco won the audience’s award for best film at the international film festival in São Paulo in 1977. Afterwards, he adapted for film the book Pixote (Pixote: A lei do mais fraco, 1981) about abandoned children living on the streets of Brazil, their growing-up, the horrors of youth centers, corrupt police and criminals who take advantage of those kids. The film features real kids from the streets and the film was popular in Brazil as well as abroad. His next film was done in Brazilian and American co-production and it was another adaptation of a literary original Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) starring William Hurt, Raul Julia and Sonia Braga. Both the film and the director were nominated for an Oscar and Hurt won it as best actor. Thanks to the success of this film, Babenco directed another drama in the US, Ironweed (1987) starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, but it was not as successful as his previous one. Then he directed the drama At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) and shot in Brazil and Venezuela starring American actors. Unfortunately, it went unnoticed and afterwards his career slowed down. In 1994 he learned that he had cancer and had to undergo a transplantation of bone marrow. Several years later he returned to directing and made the romantic drama Foolish Heart (Corazón iluminado, 1998) starring South American actors.  His next success was the ambitious project Carandiru (2003), true story about the prison and its inmates, shot on the original location and starring real prisoners. The film was based on the book written by the former prison doctor who also treated Babenco. Carandiru was the most popular film of the year in Brazil and later a TV show was made based on it. It was also popular in other countries around the world. Babenco’s next project was the romantic drama El pasado (2007). He directed a segment of the omnibus featuring several directors Words with Gods (2014), and his last film is My Hindu Friend (2015), drama with Willem Dafoe who portrays a dying director. He died after a heart attack a year later.