Ricardo Preve

Introduction

He left Argentina in 1976 by crewing a sailboat from Argentina to South Africa. During the journey, the novice Argentine crew and the inexperienced English speaking boat owner ran out of food off the coast of Africa. They subsisted on cooking grease and vitamin pills until they were towed to safety. The exploits of the young Argentinians were reported in sailing magazines in their home country.

Biography

Ricardo Preve recently produced and directed The Ghosts of Machu Picchu and co-produced Child Mummy Sacrifice for National Geographic Television. The Ghosts of Machu Picchu aired on PBS while Child Mummy Sacrifice aired on National Geographic Channel. He also locally produced two other documentaries for National Geographic Television, Darwin’s Secret Notebooks and Mengele Twins. He has also locally produced 4 episodes of the series Are We There Yet?: World Adventure, filmed for National Geographic Kids in Brazil.

His earlier films received great acclaim at film festivals around the world. Preve first associate-produced Adiós, querida Luna in 2004, and later co-produced Mondovino that same year. The latter went on to be an Official Selection of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, an honor especially notable because it is one of only four documentaries ever nominated for the Palme d'Or in the history of the festival.

Preve then wrote and produced the documentary Chagas, Un Mal Escondido with the support of Doctors Without Borders, and co-produced Tango, Un Giro Extraño in 2005, and wrote, produced and directed the documentary entitled Esperanza Means Hope in 2006. That same year, Preve executive-produced Summer Running: The Race to Cure Breast Cancer, a documentary produced by friend and colleague Scott Mactavish. In 2006, Preve wrote and directed the short film La Noche Antes, and in 2007 he wrote and directed La Notte Prima.

In 2009 Preve wrote and directed Jose Ignacio, his first feature film. It screened at the Punta Del Este International Film Festival as well as at the Virginia Film Festival, the Levante Film Festival, and the Strasbourg International Film Festival.

In 2012 Preve ended directing first season of a fiction series for the uruguayian television Garzon, a free adaptation of the Quijote de Cervantes.

Preve has made a name for himself as a Chagas activist, raising awareness about the deadly disease in coordination with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) organization.

He made his debut as a professional photographer in 2010, donating a portion of the proceeds from his first photo exhibit about the African goddess "Iemanja" to the Doctors Without Borders organization in light of the recent catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. Later his photographs were gathered by the UNESCO for the exhibit named “Afrodescendants / Prints and Identities”, and then exhibited in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.