Fred Figner (2 December 1866

Milevsko Milevsko (; ) is a town in Písek District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 8,000 inhabitants. Administrative division Milevsko consists of six municipal parts (in brackets population according to the 2021 census): ...

- 19 January 1947), also known as Frederico Figner, born as Friedrich Figner, was an

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

-born entrepreneur, and cinema and music industry pioneer mostly in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Biography

Figner was Jewish emigrant who lived in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and landed in

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará), often called Belém of Pará, is the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of B ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

in 1891. He traveled to many regions of Brazil doing public exhibitions of Edison's

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

. Nine years later Figner settled down in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, where he established in 1900 the ''Casa Edison'', the first commercial recording company in Brazil. The company is considered a pioneer in recording and selling Brazilian popular music. He also founded ''Odeon'', the first Brazilian factory of phonograph records. In 1896 he filmed in

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what are now considered the first three films of the country. Figner's three films consisted of short depictions of sights of the city of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

(named ''Vistas de Palermo'', ''La Avenida de Mayo'' and ''La Plaza de Mayo'') and were screened 24 November 1896. Little is known of Figner regarding his filming activities, and his work is usually obscured by that of

Eugenio Py Eugenio is an Italian and Spanish masculine given name deriving from the Greek ' Eugene'. The name is Eugénio in Portuguese and Eugênio in Brazilian Portuguese. The name's translated literal meaning is well born, or of noble status. Similar d ...

's, a Frenchman who filmed in 1897 '' La Bandera Argentina'' ("The Argentine Flag").

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Figner, Fred 1866 births 1947 deaths Brazilian record producers Brazilian people of Czech descent Argentine cinematographers Argentine film directors Cinema pioneers Czech Jews Emigrants from Austria-Hungary Immigrants to the United States Immigrants to Brazil Immigrants to Argentina