Daniel Filmus
Daniel Fernando Filmus is an Argentine politician and academic, formerly Senator for Buenos Aires during the period 2007-2013 and Minister of Education, Science and Technology in the government of President Néstor Kirchner. He was Argentina's Secretary for Matters Relating to the Falkland Islands.Biography
Born in La Paternal, Buenos Aires, to María Cecilia Cwik and Salomón Filmus, his mother was an English language teacher of Polish descent, and his father a Jewish immigrant from Bessarabia who arrived in Argentina in 1928 and became a shopkeeper. Daniel Filmus was briefly involved in the Communist youth wing as a teenager, and enrolled at the University of Buenos Aires. He became involved in Peronist politics as a student union activist, and helped establish an office of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights at UBA. He studied psychology and sociology at the university, and earned a degree in the latter in 1977. Filmus became a secondary school teacher, working in Entre Ríos and Chaco Provinces. He earned a specialization in adult education at CREFAL, a literacy promotion program in Mexico, and a master's degree in education at the Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro in 1989. Filmus never married. He had a daughter in 1992 during his first long-term relationship, and another daughter in 2002 with his second partner, Marisa Factorovich, a psychoanalyst.
Filmus became a professor of sociology at UBA in 1985 and served as president of the UBA Sociology Alumni Association, writing several books on the subject. He served in the Citizen Power Council of Buenos Aires and as staff researcher in the Latin American School of Social Studies, whose Argentine chapter he headed between 1992 and 2000. He was appointed secretary of education of the City of Buenos Aires by Mayor Aníbal Ibarra, who asked him to become his running mate for his successful 2003 bid for reelection. Newly inaugurated president Néstor Kirchner appointed Filmus Minister of Education before the mayoral race began, however. Filmus also served as staff researcher at the National Research Council from 1997, and as president of the UNESCO Debt-for-Education task force from 2006.
Filmus ran for mayor of Buenos Aires on the Kirchnerist Front for Victory ticket in 2007. He came in second in the first round, and was defeated by Republican Proposal candidate Mauricio Macri by nearly 22% in the runoff. He was, however, elected Senator for Buenos Aires and took office in December 2007; he was named president of the Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development.
He again ran as the Front for Victory candidate mayor of Buenos Aires in 2011, naming his rival in the primaries, Labor Minister Carlos Tomada, as his running mate. The results were largely a replay of the 2007 election, however, with a second place showing in the first round and Macri's eventual reelection in the runoff by a margin of over 28%.
