Agustín Mango 
The Argentine film community is in an uproar over the firing of Buenos Aires Film Museum director Paula Félix-Didier, who confirmed on Friday she will step down from office.
The film historian posted a message on social media saying she will no longer be the museum’s director but will “remain a part of the staff that holds this institution.”
Félix-Didier thanked Buenos Aires Culture Minister Gabriela Ricardes “for the dialogue during this process.” The reasons for the decision were not made public.
A film historian and archivist with an MA from New York University, Félix-Didier had presided over the Buenos Aires Pablo Ducrós Hicken Film Museum since 2009. She played a key role in the famous discovery of the most complete print of Metropolis, the 1927 sci-fi masterpiece by German director Fritz Lang, which was found in Buenos Aires in 2008.
In 2025, Félix-Didier received the prestigious Jean Mity Award at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the world’s most renowned silent film festival in Pordenone, Italy.
Unanimous support
Rumors of the dismissal began circulating on Argentine social media this week, with filmmakers, programmers, archivists, and festival directors all rallying behind Félix-Didier and criticizing Ricardes’ decision.
The news is an unusual development. In May, Ricardes had praised the museum’s work while announcing France’s Lumière Festival of silent film would take place in Buenos Aires next year.
“Our Pablo Ducrós Hicken Film Museum has been quietly carrying out this task for decades: recovering, restoring, and saving works that would otherwise have been lost forever. The Lumière Festival in Buenos Aires is also international recognition of this extraordinary work,” she posted at the time.
Former Buenos Aires City and national government culture minister Pablo Avelluto called it a “mistake, a clumsy move, or even worse, a symptom of [City Mayor] Jorge Macri’s disinterest in porteños culture.”
On Thursday, the Friends of the Buenos Aires Film Museum Association issued a statement expressing their “deep concern” over the decision to remove Félix-Didier from office.
The Association also worried about “the future of preservation policies for our audiovisual heritage” and stressed Félix-Didier’s “dedication, management capacity, and commitment to audiovisual preservation that have been recognized both in Argentina and abroad.”
“The broad support she has received in recent days from professionals, researchers, filmmakers, programmers, archivists, and culture workers reflects an exceptional career, built over decades of sustained work in favor of film heritage,” they added.
At the time of their posting, the removal had not yet been confirmed.
The six former directors of Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival (BAFICI) also expressed their support for Félix-Dider on X and Instagram.
“It would be a very bad sign if the Buenos Aires City culture ministry uses a ridiculous pretense to fire Paula Félix-Didier, film museum director and the first defender of our film heritage,” posted filmmaker and first BAFICI director Andrés DiTella.
Film archivist and historian Fernando Martín Peña, the other discoverer of the Metropolis print and a former director of the Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata film festivals, praised Félix-Didier, saying that “absolutely no one who can match her experience and training in order to replace her.”
“The city’s cultural administration supposedly wants to distance itself from the libertarian catastrophe that runs the nation. They’re supposed to care about culture. This is their chance to prove it,” he added.
The news is also beginning to gain international attention. Film critic Dave Kerh, a curator in the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, warned of “bad news from Buenos Aires.”
“It looks as if the widely respected director of the Museo Del Cinema, Paula Felix-Didier, has been removed by the city government after 17 years on the job,” he posted online.
Across the Río de la Plata, the prestigious Uruguayan Cinematheque also stated their support for Félix-Didier on X.
“There is no doubt that history books on Latin American cinema will soon include a chapter explaining how Argentine cinema survived public policies intent on destroying it, thanks to the work of people like Paula Félix-Didier, who dedicated superhuman effort and ingenuity to preserving and promoting it at the helm of the Buenos Aires Film Museum,” they wrote.
