Richard Shpuntoff

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina since 2002, Richard Shpuntoff is a private tour guide, documentary filmmaker and translator, who is passionate about sharing the culture and social history of his adopted country. In his tours, he invites visitors to share in the energy and charm of Buenos Aires, to experience daily life, art, culture and whatever else that interests them. His aim is to weave the narrative threads that have shaped the city and the culture of its people in all their complexity and contradictions.

Along with his work as a guide, Shpuntoff has done translation work on over 150 Argentine films and on dozens of academic papers focused on issues of poverty, youth and childhood, and the “disappearances” of citizens by the last military dictatorship in the 1970s and early 80s. He is also a documentary filmmaker. His last film Everything that is Forgotten in an Instant, a documentary that bridges his worlds of Buenos Aires and New York City where he was born and raised, had its U.S. premiere at MoMA’s Doc Fortnite Festival.

He holds a degree in Urban Studies from Columbia University, and is father to two young Argentine born women, one of whom recently graduated from Brandeis, and the other who is studying tango and folk singing in Buenos Aires.