Cinema of Spain
Encyclopedia
The art of motion-picture making within the nation of Spain
or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.
In recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence. In the long history of Spanish cinema, the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel
was the first to achieve universal recognition, followed by Pedro Almodóvar
in the 1980s. Spanish cinema has also seen international success over the years with films by directors
like Segundo de Chomón
, Florián Rey
, Luis García Berlanga, Juan Antonio Bardem, Carlos Saura
, Julio Médem
and Alejandro Amenábar
. Woody Allen
, upon receiving the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in 2002 in Oviedo
remarked: "when I left New York, the most exciting film in the city at the time was Spanish, Pedro Almodovar's one. I hope that Europeans will continue to lead the way in film making because at the moment not much is coming from the United States."
Non-directors have obtained less international notability like the cinematographer
Néstor Almendros
, the Art director
Gil Parrondo
, the screenwriter Rafael Azcona
, the actresses Maribel Verdú
and, especially, Penélope Cruz
and the actor
s Fernando Rey
, Francisco Rabal
, Antonio Banderas
, Javier Bardem
and Fernando Fernán Gómez
have obtained significant recognition outside Spain.
Today, 10 to 20% of box office receipts in Spain are generated by domestic films, a situation that repeats itself in many nations of Europe and the Americas. The Spanish government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, which include the assurance of funding from the main national television stations. The trend is being reversed with the recent screening of productions such as the €30 million film Alatriste
(starring Viggo Mortensen
), the Academy Award winning Spanish film Pan's Labyrinth
(starring Maribel Verdú
), Volver
(starring Penélope Cruz
and Carmen Maura
), and Los Borgia (starring Paz Vega
), all of them sold-out blockbusters in Spain.
Another aspect of Spanish cinema mostly unknown to the general public is the appearance of English-language Spanish films such as Agora
(directed by Alejandro Amenábar
and starring Rachel Weisz
), Ché (directed by Steven Soderbergh
and starring Benicio del Toro
), The Machinist
(starring Christian Bale
), The Others
(starring Nicole Kidman
), and Milos Forman
’s Goya's Ghosts
(starring Javier Bardem
and Natalie Portman
). All of these films were produced by Spanish firms.
. Exhibitions of Lumière
films were screened in Madrid and Barcelona in May and December of 1896
, respectively.
The matter of which Spanish film came first is in doubt. The first was either Salida de la misa de doce de la Iglesia del Pilar de Zaragoza (Exit of the Twelve O'Clock Mass from the Church of El Pilar of Zaragoza) by Eduardo Jimeno Peromarta, Plaza del puerto en Barcelona (Plaza of the Port of Barcelona) by Alexandre Promio or the anonymous film Llegada de un tren de Teruel a Segorbe (Arrival of a Train from Teruel in Segorbe). It is also possible that the first film was Riña en un café (Brawl in a Café) by the prolific filmmaker Fructuós Gelabert. These films were all released in 1897
.
The first Spanish film director to achieve great success internationally was Segundo de Chomón
, who worked in France
and Italy
but made several famous fantasy films in Spain such as El Hotel eléctrico
.
s of Spain) predominated until the 1960s. Prominent among these were the films of Florián Rey
, starring Imperio Argentina
, and the first version of Nobleza Baturra (1925
). Historical dramas such as Vida de Cristóbal Colón y su Descubrimiento de América (The Life of Christopher Columbus and His Discovery of America) (1917
), by the French
director Gerald Bourgeois, adaptations of newspaper serials
such as Los misterios de Barcelona (The Mysteries of Barcelona) starring Joan Maria Codina (1916
), and of stage plays such as Don Juan Tenorio (1922), by Ricardo de Baños, and zarzuelas (comedic operetta
s), were also produced. Even the Nobel Prize
-winning playwright Jacinto Benavente
, who said that "in film they pay me the scraps," would shoot film versions of his theatrical works.
In 1928
, Ernesto Giménez Caballero
and Luis Buñuel
founded the first cine-club (film society
), in Madrid. By that point, Madrid was already the primary center of the industry; 44 of the 58 films released up until that point had been produced there.
The rural drama La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village) (Florian Rey, 1929
) was a hit in Paris, where, at the same time, Buñuel
and Dalí
premiered Un chien andalou
(An Andalusian Dog). Un chien andalou has become one of the most well-known avant-garde
films of that era.
, the introduction of audiophonic foreign productions had hurt the Spanish film industry to the point where only a single title was released that year.
In 1935
, Manuel Casanova
founded the Compañía Industrial Film Española S.A. (Spanish Industrial Film Company Inc, Cifesa
) and introduced sound to Spanish film-making. CIFESA would grow to become the biggest production company to ever exist in Spain. Sometimes criticized as an instrument of the right wing, it nevertheless supported young filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel
and his pseudo-documentary Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan
(Breadless Land). In 1933
it was responsible for filming 17 motion pictures and in 1934
, 21. The most notable success was Benito Perojo
´s La verbena de la paloma (The Dove's Verbena).They were also responsible for the 1947 Don Quijote de la Mancha
, the most elaborate version of the Cervantes classic up to that time. By 1935
production had risen to 37 films.
and censorship
. A typical example of this is Luis Buñuel
's España 1936
, which also contains much rare newsreel footage. The pro-Franco
side founded the National Department of Cinematography, causing many actors to go into exile.
The new regime then began to impose obligatory dubbing to highlight directors such as Ignacio F. Iquino
, Rafael Gil
(Huella de luz
(1941)), Juan de Orduña
(Locura de amor
(1948)), Antonio Román
(Los últimos de Filipinas
), José Luis Sáenz de Heredia
(Raza
) (1942)), and Edgar Neville
. Cifesa produced Ella, él y sus millones
as well as Fedra (1956), by Manuel Mur Oti.
For its part, Marcelino pan y vino
(Marcelino, Bread and Wine) (1955) from Ladislao Vajda would trigger a trend of child actors, such as those who would become the protagonists of "Joselito," "Marisol
," "Rocío Durcal
" or "Pili y Mili."
Finally, in the 1950s, the influence of Neorealism became evident in the works of new directors such as Antonio del Amo, Antonio Nieves Conde's masterpiece Surcos
, Juan Antonio Bardem's (Muerte de un ciclista
and Calle mayor
), and Luis García Berlanga (Bienvenido Mister Marshall, Plácido
).
Juan de Orduña would later have an enormous commercial hit with El Último Cuplé (The Final Variety Song) (1957), with leading actress Sara Montiel
.
Buñuel sporadically returned to Spain to film the shocking Viridiana
(1961) and Tristana
(1970), two of his best films.
Also, the hundreds of Spaghetti-westerns and sword and sandal
films shot in southern Spain by mixed Spanish-Italian teams were co-productions.
On the other hand, several American epic
-scale superproductions or blockbusters
were shot also in Spain, produced either by Samuel Bronston
, King of Kings (1961), El Cid
(1961), 55 Days at Peking
(1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire
(1964), Circus World
(1964)), or by others (The Pride and the Passion
(1957), Solomon and Sheba
(1959), Lawrence of Arabia
(1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965)). These movies employed many Spanish technical professionals, and as a byproduct caused that some filmstars, like Ava Gardner
and Orson Welles
lived in Spain for years. Actually Welles, with Mr. Arkadin
(1955), in fact a French-Spanish-Swiss co-production, was one of the first American filmmakers to devise Spain as location for his shootings, and he did it again for Chimes at Midnight
(1966), this time a Spanish-Swiss co-production.
Many international actors played in Spanish films: Italians
Vittorio Gassman
and Rossano Brazzi
with Mexican
María Félix
in La corona negra; Italian couple Raf Vallone
and Elena Varzi in Los ojos dejan huella
, Mexican Arturo de Córdova in Los peces rojos
, Americans Betsy Blair
in Calle mayor
; Edmund Gwenn
in Calabuch
or Richard Basehart
in Los jueves, milagro
among many others. All the foreign actors were dubbed
into Spanish. Mexican actor Gael García Bernal
has also recently received international notoriety in films by Spanish directors.
, Francisco Regueiro
, Manuel Summers, and, above all, Carlos Saura
. Apart from this line of directors, Fernando Fernán Gómez
made the classic El extraño viaje
(The Strange Trip) (1964) and Víctor Erice
created the internationally acclaimed El espíritu de la colmena
(The Spirit of the Beehive) (1973). From television came Jaime de Armiñan, author of Mi querida señorita
(My Dear Lady) (1971).
From the so-called Escuela de Barcelona
, originally more experimentalist and cosmopolitan, come Vicente Aranda
, Jaime Camino
, and Gonzalo Suárez
, who made their master works in the 1980s.
The San Sebastian International Film Festival
is a major film festival supervised by the FIAPF
. It was started in 1953, and it takes place in San Sebastián
every year. Alfred Hitchcock
, Audrey Hepburn
, Steven Spielberg
, Gregory Peck
, Elizabeth Taylor
are some of the stars that have participated in this festival, the most important in Spain and one of the best cinema festivals in the world.
The Festival de Cine de Sitges
, now known as the Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya (International Film Festival of Catalonia), was started in 1967. It is considered one of the best cinematographic contests in Europe, and is the best in the specialty of science fiction film
.
At the beginning, the popular phenomena of striptease
and landismo (from Alfredo Landa
) triumph. During the democracy
, a whole new series of directors base their films either on controversial topics or on revising the country's history. Jaime Chávarri
, Víctor Erice
, José Luis Garci
, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
, Eloy de la Iglesia
, Pilar Miró
and Pedro Olea were some of these who directed great films. Montxo Armendáriz
or Juanma Bajo Ulloa
's "new Basque cinema" has also been outstanding; another prominent Basque director is Julio Médem
.
The Spanish cinema, however, depends on the great hits of the so-called Madrileño comedy by Fernando Colomo
or Fernando Trueba
, the sophisticated melodramas by Pedro Almodóvar
, Alex de la Iglesia
and Santiago Segura
's black humour or Alejandro Amenábar
's works, in such a manner that, according to producer José Antonio Félez, "50% of total box office revenues comes from five titles, and between 8 and 10 films give 80% of the total" during the year 2004.
In 1987, a year after the founding of the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España
, the Goya Awards
were created to recognize excellence in many aspects of Spanish motion picture making such as acting, directing and screenwriting. The first ceremony took place on March 16, 1987 at the Teatro Lope de Vega, Madrid. The ceremony continues to take place annually around the end of January, and awards are given to films produced during the previous year. The award itself is a small bronze bust of Francisco de Goya created by the sculptor José Luis Fernández
.
(directed by Fernando Trueba
, 1995), The Others
(Alejandro Amenábar
, 2001), The Machinist
(Brad Anderson
, 2004), Basic Instinct 2
(produced by KanZaman Spain, 2006) or Miloš Forman
’s Goya's Ghosts
(Xuxa Produciones, 2006).
KanZaman (Spain) and Recorded Picture Company (UK) co-produced Sexy Beast
, directed by Jonathan Glazer
, in 1999. Films co-produced by this company include The Reckoning (Paul McGuigan
, 2003), The Bridge of San Luis Rey
, based on the Pulitzer prize
winning Thornton Wilder
novel of the same name
and directed by Mary McGuckian
. It featured an ensemble cast
consisting of Robert De Niro
, Harvey Keitel
, Kathy Bates
and Spanish actress Pilar López de Ayala
. Other films in this category are Mike Barker
's A Good Woman
(2004), and Sahara
(Breck Eisner
, 2005). In 2004, KanZaman co-produced Ridley Scott
's epic film Kingdom of Heaven
, making it the biggest production in the history of Spanish cinema.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.
In recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence. In the long history of Spanish cinema, the great filmmaker Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
was the first to achieve universal recognition, followed by Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular...
in the 1980s. Spanish cinema has also seen international success over the years with films by directors
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
like Segundo de Chomón
Segundo de Chomón
Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón y Ruiz was a pioneering Spanish film director. He produced many short films in France while working for Pathé Frères and has been compared to Georges Méliès, due to his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions.-Selected filmography:*1902: Choque de trenes,...
, Florián Rey
Florián Rey
Florián Rey , born at La Almunia de Doña Godina, , 25 January 1894 - death at Benidorm , 11 April 1962 was the most successful Spanish film director in the 20's and 30's....
, Luis García Berlanga, Juan Antonio Bardem, Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...
, Julio Médem
Julio Medem
Julio Médem is a Spanish writer and film director.Medem was born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain and showed an interest in movies since childhood, when he would take his father's Super 8 camera and shoot at night, while nobody was paying attention...
and Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...
. Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, upon receiving the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in 2002 in Oviedo
Oviedo
Oviedo is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain. It is also the name of the municipality that contains the city....
remarked: "when I left New York, the most exciting film in the city at the time was Spanish, Pedro Almodovar's one. I hope that Europeans will continue to lead the way in film making because at the moment not much is coming from the United States."
Non-directors have obtained less international notability like the cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Néstor Almendros
Néstor Almendros
Néstor Almendros, ASC was an Oscar winning Spanish cinematographer. One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers, "Almendros was an artist of deep integrity, who believed the most beautiful light was natural light...he will always be remembered as a cinematographer of absolute...
, the Art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Gil Parrondo
Gil Parrondo
Gil Parrondo is a Spanish art director, set decorator and production designer. He won two Academy Awards and was nominated for another in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:...
, the screenwriter Rafael Azcona
Rafael Azcona
Rafael Azcona Fernández was an awarded Spanish screenwriter and novelist who has worked with some of the best Spanish and international filmmakers. Azcona won five Goya Awards during his career, including a lifetime achievement award in 1998.He was born in the northern Spanish city Logroño on...
, the actresses Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
and, especially, Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
and the actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
s Fernando Rey
Fernando Rey
Fernando Casado Arambillet , best known as Fernando Rey, was a Spanish film, theatre, and TV actor, who worked in both Europe and the United States...
, Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal
Francisco Rabal , perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain....
, Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
, Javier Bardem
Javier Bardem
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem is a Spanish actor. In 2007 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as sociopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los...
and Fernando Fernán Gómez
Fernando Fernán Gómez
Fernando Fernán-Gómez was a Spanish actor and director. He was born in Lima, Peru as his mother, Spanish actress Carola Fernán-Gómez, was making a tour of Latin America. Inheriting his surname as a stage name, he moved to Spain in 1924.After the Spanish Civil War he began a study of Law but...
have obtained significant recognition outside Spain.
Today, 10 to 20% of box office receipts in Spain are generated by domestic films, a situation that repeats itself in many nations of Europe and the Americas. The Spanish government has therefore implemented various measures aimed at supporting local film production and movie theaters, which include the assurance of funding from the main national television stations. The trend is being reversed with the recent screening of productions such as the €30 million film Alatriste
Alatriste
Alatriste is a 2006 Spanish historical film directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes, based on the main character of a series of novels written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Adventures of Captain Alatriste ....
(starring Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...
), the Academy Award winning Spanish film Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 Spanish Spanish-language dark fantasy film, written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films...
(starring Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú
Maribel Verdú is a Spanish actress. She is known to English-speaking audiences for playing Luisa in the 2001 film Y tu mamá también and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. In Spain she is known for films such as Belle Époque, Tetro, and Huevos de oro.Verdú was born María...
), Volver
Volver
Volver is a 2006 Spanish dramatic comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Headed by actress Penélope Cruz, the film features an ensemble cast starring Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, and Chus Lampreave...
(starring Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
and Carmen Maura
Carmen Maura
Carmen García Maura is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar.-Early life:...
), and Los Borgia (starring Paz Vega
Paz Vega
Paz Campos Trigo , better known as Paz Vega, is a Spanish actress.- Early life :Vega was born in Seville, Andalusia, Spain to a homemaker mother and a retired bullfighter father. Vega's younger sister has performed as a flamenco dancer. Vega has described her family as "traditional" and Catholic....
), all of them sold-out blockbusters in Spain.
Another aspect of Spanish cinema mostly unknown to the general public is the appearance of English-language Spanish films such as Agora
Agora (film)
Agora is a 2009 Spanish historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a female mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in 4th century Roman Egypt who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system...
(directed by Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...
and starring Rachel Weisz
Rachel Weisz
Rachel Hannah Weisz born 7 March 1970)is an English-American film and theatre actress and former fashion model. She started her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she co-founded the theatrical group Cambridge Talking Tongues...
), Ché (directed by Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh is an American film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and an Academy Award-winning film director. He is best known for directing commercial Hollywood films like Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the remake of Ocean's Eleven, but he has also directed smaller less...
and starring Benicio del Toro
Benicio del Toro
Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez is a Puerto Rican and Spanish actor and film producer. He won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a BAFTA Award for his role as Javier Rodríguez in Traffic . He is also known for his roles as Fred Fenster in The Usual...
), The Machinist
The Machinist
The Machinist is a 2004 English-language Spanish psychological thriller film directed by Brad Anderson and written by Scott Kosar....
(starring Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
), The Others
The Others (2001 film)
The Others is a 2001 psychological horror film by the Spanish-Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar, starring Nicole Kidman. It is inspired partly by the novella The Turn of the Screw....
(starring Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
), and Milos Forman
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for...
’s Goya's Ghosts
Goya's Ghosts
Goya's Ghosts is a 2006 Spanish/American film directed by Miloš Forman, and produced by Xuxa Producciones and by Saul Zaentz, and written by Miloš Forman and Jean-Claude Carrière. The film stars Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, and Stellan Skarsgård, and was filmed on location in Spain during late...
(starring Javier Bardem
Javier Bardem
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem is a Spanish actor. In 2007 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as sociopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne trémula, Boca a boca, Los...
and Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag , better known by her stage name Natalie Portman, is an actress with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was as an orphan taken in by a hitman in the 1994 French action film Léon, but major success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel...
). All of these films were produced by Spanish firms.
Origins
The first Spanish film exhibition took place on May 5, 1895 in BarcelonaBarcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. Exhibitions of Lumière
Lumière
-Characters:*Lumière , one of the two main characters of the 2002 anime series Kiddy Grade*Lumiere, a character in the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast-Places:*Lumière, a restaurant in Vancouver, Canada...
films were screened in Madrid and Barcelona in May and December of 1896
1896 in film
-Events:* January - In the United States, the Vitascope film projector is designed by Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. Armat begins working with Thomas Edison to manufacture it....
, respectively.
1897 in film
-Events:* 125 people died during a film screening at the Charity Bazaar in Paris after a curtain catches on fire from the ether used to fuel the projector lamp.* Mitchell and Kenyon go into a film-making partnership...
.
The first Spanish film director to achieve great success internationally was Segundo de Chomón
Segundo de Chomón
Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón y Ruiz was a pioneering Spanish film director. He produced many short films in France while working for Pathé Frères and has been compared to Georges Méliès, due to his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions.-Selected filmography:*1902: Choque de trenes,...
, who worked in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
but made several famous fantasy films in Spain such as El Hotel eléctrico
El Hotel eléctrico
El hotel eléctrico is a 1908 silent Spanish comedy-fantasy film directed by Segundo de Chomón.-Background:The film displays one of the earliest uses of stop motion animation in history, though it is not de Chomón's first try at this technique. His 1906 film, Le théâtre de Bob, use animated puppets...
.
The height of silent cinema
In 1914, Barcelona was the center of the nation's film industry. The españoladas (historical epicEpic film
An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...
s of Spain) predominated until the 1960s. Prominent among these were the films of Florián Rey
Florián Rey
Florián Rey , born at La Almunia de Doña Godina, , 25 January 1894 - death at Benidorm , 11 April 1962 was the most successful Spanish film director in the 20's and 30's....
, starring Imperio Argentina
Imperio Argentina
Magdalena Nile del Río was a professional singer and movie actress who was better known as Imperio Argentina. Although born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she became a citizen of Spain....
, and the first version of Nobleza Baturra (1925
1925 in film
-Events:*November 5: The Big Parade holds its Grand Premier*December 30: premier of Ben-Hur the most expensive silent film ever made costing 4-6 million dollars -Top grossing films :...
). Historical dramas such as Vida de Cristóbal Colón y su Descubrimiento de América (The Life of Christopher Columbus and His Discovery of America) (1917
1917 in film
The year 1917 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*Foundation of Universum Film AG , as a propaganda film company, in Berlin.*Technicolor System 1, a two-color process, is introduced...
), by the French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
director Gerald Bourgeois, adaptations of newspaper serials
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
such as Los misterios de Barcelona (The Mysteries of Barcelona) starring Joan Maria Codina (1916
1916 in film
The year 1916 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 17 - release of A Daughter of the Gods, the first US production with a million dollar budget, with the first nude scene by a major star....
), and of stage plays such as Don Juan Tenorio (1922), by Ricardo de Baños, and zarzuelas (comedic operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s), were also produced. Even the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning playwright Jacinto Benavente
Jacinto Benavente
Jacinto Benavente y Martínez was one of the foremost Spanish dramatists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1922....
, who said that "in film they pay me the scraps," would shoot film versions of his theatrical works.
In 1928
1928 in film
-Events:Although some movies released in 1928 had sound, most were still silent.* July 28 - Lights of New York is released by Warner Brothers. It is the first "100% Talkie" feature film, in that dialog is spoken throughout the film...
, Ernesto Giménez Caballero
Ernesto Giménez Caballero
Ernesto Giménez Caballero , also known as Gecé, was a Spanish writer, film director, diplomat and pioneer of fascism in the country difficult to classify as an European citizen and philosopher as he can be thought as one of the Spanish surrealists not far from Russian- Polish-Italian- "French"...
and Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
founded the first cine-club (film society
Film society
A film society is a membership club where people can watch screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream cinemas. In Spain they are known as "Cineclubs," and in Germany they are known as "Filmclubs"....
), in Madrid. By that point, Madrid was already the primary center of the industry; 44 of the 58 films released up until that point had been produced there.
The rural drama La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village) (Florian Rey, 1929
1929 in film
-Events:The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.*January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors....
) was a hit in Paris, where, at the same time, Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
and Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
premiered Un chien andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
(An Andalusian Dog). Un chien andalou has become one of the most well-known avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
films of that era.
The crisis of sound
By 19311931 in film
-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:*Best Picture: Cimarron - MGM*Best Actor: Lionel Barrymore - A Free Soul*Best Actor: Wallace Beery - The Champ*Best Actor: Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...
, the introduction of audiophonic foreign productions had hurt the Spanish film industry to the point where only a single title was released that year.
In 1935
1935 in film
-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
, Manuel Casanova
Manuel Casanova
Manuel F. Casanova is the Gottfried and Gisela Kolb Endowed Chair in Outpatient Psychiatry and a Professor of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology at the University of Louisville.-Education and early career:...
founded the Compañía Industrial Film Española S.A. (Spanish Industrial Film Company Inc, Cifesa
Cifesa
Cifesa is the acronym for Compania Industrial Film Espanola, a noted Spanish film studio. They have released such films as Don Quijote de la Mancha and the 1954 film version of El alcalde de Zalamea, as well as being responsible for the Spanish release of some Hollywood films....
) and introduced sound to Spanish film-making. CIFESA would grow to become the biggest production company to ever exist in Spain. Sometimes criticized as an instrument of the right wing, it nevertheless supported young filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
and his pseudo-documentary Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan
Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan
Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan , is a 27-minute-long documentary film directed by Luis Buñuel and co-produced by Buñuel and Ramon Acin...
(Breadless Land). In 1933
1933 in film
-Events:* March 2 - King Kong premieres in New York City.* June 6 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey.* British Film Institute founded....
it was responsible for filming 17 motion pictures and in 1934
1934 in film
-Events:*January 26 - Samuel Goldwyn purchases the film rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the L. Frank Baum estate for $40,000.*February 19 - Bob Hope marries Dolores Reade...
, 21. The most notable success was Benito Perojo
Benito Perojo
Benito Perojo , was a successful Spanish film director and film producer.-Selected Filmography as director:* El Negro que tenía el alma blanca.* Corazones sin rumbo.* La bodega....
´s La verbena de la paloma (The Dove's Verbena).They were also responsible for the 1947 Don Quijote de la Mancha
Don Quixote de la Mancha (1947 film)
Don Quixote de la Mancha is the first sound film version in Spanish of the great classic novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It was directed and adapted by Rafael Gil and released in 1947...
, the most elaborate version of the Cervantes classic up to that time. By 1935
1935 in film
-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
production had risen to 37 films.
The Civil War and its aftermath
Around 1936, both sides of the Civil War began to use cinema as a means of propagandaPropaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. A typical example of this is Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
's España 1936
España 1936 (film)
España 1936 is a Spanish documentary short directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois and written by by Luis Buñuel, about the early days of the Spanish Civil War. It contains much genuine newsreel footage.-Further reading:...
, which also contains much rare newsreel footage. The pro-Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
side founded the National Department of Cinematography, causing many actors to go into exile.
The new regime then began to impose obligatory dubbing to highlight directors such as Ignacio F. Iquino
Ignacio F. Iquino
Ignacio F. Iquino, also credited as John Wood, Steve MacCohy, Prada-Iquino, Steve McCoy, Steve McCohy and Ignacio Iquino, was a Spanish film director...
, Rafael Gil
Rafael Gil
Rafael Gil was a Spanish film director and screenwriter.- Filmography :*El hombre que se quiso matar .*Huella de luz. . –script too-*Viaje sin destino...
(Huella de luz
Huella de luz
Huella de luz is a 1943 Spanish comedy film directed by Rafael Gil on his directing debut. It is based on a novel by Wenceslao Fernández Flórez.-Cast:* Isabel de Pomés ... Lelly Medina* Antonio Casal ... Octavio Saldaña...
(1941)), Juan de Orduña
Juan de Orduña
Juan de Orduña was a Spanish film director.- Filmography :* Me has hecho perder el juicio * Eusébio, la Pantera Negra * El caserío * El huésped del sevillano...
(Locura de amor
Locura de amor
Locura de amor is a 1948 Spanish historical drama film directed by Juan de Orduña.The movie is based on the play La Locura de Amor written in 1855 by Manuel Tamayo y Baus around the figure of Queen Joanna of Castile; who attracted authors, composers, and artists of the romanticist movement, due to...
(1948)), Antonio Román
Antonio Román
Antonio Román was a top Spanish film director, screenwriter, film producer and film critic.During the 1940s, Antonio Román was one of Spain's most celebrated filmmakers and went on to become one of the managers of the Cooperativa Cinematográfica Castilla...
(Los últimos de Filipinas
Los últimos de Filipinas
Los últimos de Filipinas is a 1945 Spanish biographical war film directed by Antonio Román. It is based on a radio script by Enrique Llovet; Los Héroes de Baler; and novels by de Enrique Alfonso Barcones El Fuerte de Baler; and Rafael Sánchez Campoy El Fuerte de Baler.Nani Fernández played famous...
), José Luis Sáenz de Heredia
José Luis Sáenz de Heredia
José Luis Sáenz de Heredia was a Spanish film director. His film Ten Ready Rifles was entered into the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.-Filmography:* Patricio miró a una estrella...
(Raza
Raza (film)
Raza is a 1942 Spanish semi-autobiographical war film directed by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia. It is based on a novel by Francisco Franco under the pseudonym of "Jaime de Andrade."The film won the Prize of the National Syndicate of Spectacle....
) (1942)), and Edgar Neville
Edgar Neville
Edgar Neville Romrée, Count of Berlanga de Duero was a Spanish playwright and film director, a member of the Generation of '27....
. Cifesa produced Ella, él y sus millones
Ella, él y sus millones
Ella, él y sus millones is a 1944 Spanish comedy film written and directed by Juan de Orduña.The movie is based on the play written by Honorio Maura....
as well as Fedra (1956), by Manuel Mur Oti.
For its part, Marcelino pan y vino
Marcelino Pan y Vino
Marcelino Pan Y Vino is a 1955 Spanish film. It was a success, and other countries have produced versions of it. The 1955 film was written by José María Sánchez Silva, who based it on his novel, and directed by Ladislao Vajda...
(Marcelino, Bread and Wine) (1955) from Ladislao Vajda would trigger a trend of child actors, such as those who would become the protagonists of "Joselito," "Marisol
Marisol (actress)
Josefa Flores González, better known as Marisol or Pepa Flores, is a Spanish singer and actress. She is considered one of the most popular icons of the 60s in Spain.-Biography:...
," "Rocío Durcal
Rocío Dúrcal
Rocío Dúrcal , born as María de los Ángeles de Las Heras Ortíz, was a Spanish singer and actress, known artistically as Rocío Durcal. Spanish is the best selling solo albums with more than 80 million to date...
" or "Pili y Mili."
Finally, in the 1950s, the influence of Neorealism became evident in the works of new directors such as Antonio del Amo, Antonio Nieves Conde's masterpiece Surcos
Surcos
Furrows is a Spanish film directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde, and written by him in collaboration with Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, Eugenio Montes, and Natividad Zaro...
, Juan Antonio Bardem's (Muerte de un ciclista
Muerte de un ciclista
Death of a Cyclist is a 1955 social realist Spanish drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem and starring Italian actress Lucia Bosè, who was dubbed into Spanish by Elsa Fábregas...
and Calle mayor
Calle mayor
Main street is a 1956 Spanish drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem. It features a French-Spanish cast led by the American actress Betsy Blair, who was dubbed into Spanish, as well as the Spanish actor José Suárez. It is based on a Carlos Arniches' play titled La señorita de Trévelez. The...
), and Luis García Berlanga (Bienvenido Mister Marshall, Plácido
Placido
-As a surname:*Michele Placido, an internationally known Italian actor and director*General Placido Vega y Daza, a famous 19th century Mexican lander*Mike De Placido, an English footballer*Violante Placido, actress, singer, and daughter of Michele Placido...
).
Juan de Orduña would later have an enormous commercial hit with El Último Cuplé (The Final Variety Song) (1957), with leading actress Sara Montiel
Sara Montiel
Sara Montiel is a Spanish singer, and actress. She is still a much-loved and internationally known name in the Spanish-speaking movie and music industries....
.
Buñuel sporadically returned to Spain to film the shocking Viridiana
Viridiana
Viridiana is a 1961 Spanish-Mexican motion picture, directed by Luis Buñuel and produced by Mexican Gustavo Alatriste. It is loosely based on Halma, a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós....
(1961) and Tristana
Tristana
Tristana is a 1970 Spanish film directed by Luis Buñuel. Based on the eponymous novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, it stars Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey and was shot in Toledo, Spain. The voices of French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian actor Franco Nero were dubbed to Spanish...
(1970), two of his best films.
Co-productions and foreign productions
Numerous co-productions with France and, most of all, Italy along the 50s, 60s and 70s invigorated Spanish cinema both industrially and artistically. Actually the just mentioned Buñuel's movies were co-productions: Viridiana was Spanish-Mexican, and Tristana Spanish-French-Italian.Also, the hundreds of Spaghetti-westerns and sword and sandal
Sword and sandal
The Peplum , also known as Sword-and-Sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made Historical or Biblical Epics that dominated the Italian film industry from 1957 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by the "Spaghetti Western"...
films shot in southern Spain by mixed Spanish-Italian teams were co-productions.
On the other hand, several American epic
Epic film
An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...
-scale superproductions or blockbusters
Blockbuster (entertainment)
Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry...
were shot also in Spain, produced either by Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston
Samuel Bronston was a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, and a nephew of socialist revolutionary figure, Leon Trotsky. He was also the petitioner in a U.S...
, King of Kings (1961), El Cid
El Cid (film)
El Cid is a historical epic film, a romanticized story of the life of the Christian Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, called "El Cid" who in the 11th century fought the North African Almoravides and ultimately contributed to the unification of Spain.Made by Samuel Bronston Productions in...
(1961), 55 Days at Peking
55 Days at Peking
55 Days at Peking is a 1963 historical epic film starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, made by Samuel Bronston Productions, and released by Allied Artists. The movie was produced by Samuel Bronston and directed by Nicholas Ray, Andrew Marton , and Guy Green...
(1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)
The Fall of the Roman Empire is a 1964 English-language epic film produced by Samuel Bronston Productions and the Rank Organisation, and released by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Samuel Bronston with Jaime Prades and Michal Waszynski as associate producers. The...
(1964), Circus World
Circus World (film)
Circus World, also known as Samuel Bronston's Circus World, is a 1964 drama film made by the independent production company Samuel Bronston Productions and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
(1964)), or by others (The Pride and the Passion
The Pride and the Passion
The Pride and the Passion is a historical film drama starring Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren made by Stanley Kramer Productions. Set in the Napoleonic era, it is the story of a British officer who has orders to retrieve a huge cannon from Spain and take it to the British forces by ship...
(1957), Solomon and Sheba
Solomon and Sheba
Solomon and Sheba is a 1959 Biblical epic film made by Edward Small Productions and distributed by United Artists. The film stars Yul Brynner, Gina Lollobrigida, George Sanders and Marisa Pavan, with David Farrar, Harry Andrews, Jack Gwillim, Laurence Naismith, William Devlin, Jean Anderson and...
(1959), Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
(1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965)). These movies employed many Spanish technical professionals, and as a byproduct caused that some filmstars, like Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
lived in Spain for years. Actually Welles, with Mr. Arkadin
Mr. Arkadin
Mr. Arkadin is a French-Spanish-Swiss coproduction film, written and directed by Orson Welles and shot in several Spanish locations, including Segovia, Valladolid and Madrid.Its history is convoluted...
(1955), in fact a French-Spanish-Swiss co-production, was one of the first American filmmakers to devise Spain as location for his shootings, and he did it again for Chimes at Midnight
Chimes at Midnight
Chimes at Midnight, also known as Falstaff and Campanadas a medianoche , is a 1965 film directed by and starring Orson Welles. Focused on William Shakespeare's recurring character Sir John Falstaff, the film stars Welles himself as Falstaff, Keith Baxter plays Prince Hal , and John Gielgud plays...
(1966), this time a Spanish-Swiss co-production.
Many international actors played in Spanish films: Italians
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI , popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director...
and Rossano Brazzi
Rossano Brazzi
-Biography:Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria Brazzi. He attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four...
with Mexican
Mexican people
Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....
María Félix
María Félix
María Félix was a Mexican film actress and one of the icons of the golden era of the Cinema of Mexico and also one of the myths of the Spanish language Cinema for her life style and personality...
in La corona negra; Italian couple Raf Vallone
Raf Vallone
Raffaele "Raf" Vallone was an Italian footballer, actor and an international film star.Born in Tropea, Calabria, the son of a lawyer, Vallone attended Liceo classico Cavour in Turin, and studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Turin and entered his father's law firm...
and Elena Varzi in Los ojos dejan huella
Los ojos dejan huella
Los ojos dejan huellas is a 1952 Spanish thriller film directed by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia. It stars Italian actor Raf Vallone and his wife Elena Varzi...
, Mexican Arturo de Córdova in Los peces rojos
Los peces rojos
Los peces rojos is a 1955 Spanish thriller film directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde.-Remake:In 2003, Antonio Giménez Rico remade the movie, with Academy Award winner José Luis Garci producing the newer version. The remake starred Carmen Morales and Santiago Ramos....
, Americans Betsy Blair
Betsy Blair
Betsy Blair was an American actress of film and stage, long based in London.Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940...
in Calle mayor
Calle mayor
Main street is a 1956 Spanish drama film directed by Juan Antonio Bardem. It features a French-Spanish cast led by the American actress Betsy Blair, who was dubbed into Spanish, as well as the Spanish actor José Suárez. It is based on a Carlos Arniches' play titled La señorita de Trévelez. The...
; Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn was an English theatre and film actor.-Background:Born Edmund John Kellaway in Wandsworth, London , and educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London, Gwenn began his acting career in the theatre in 1895...
in Calabuch
Calabuch
Calabuch is a 1956 comedy film directed by Luis García Berlanga.-Production background:This Spanish-Italian co-production was filmed in Peniscola, Castellón , and features an international cast led by British-American actor Edmund Gwenn in his last film role, and Italians Valentina Cortese and...
or Richard Basehart
Richard Basehart
John Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.-Career:...
in Los jueves, milagro
Los jueves, milagro
Los jueves, milagro is a 1959 Spanish film directed by Luis García Berlanga.- External links :...
among many others. All the foreign actors were dubbed
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
into Spanish. Mexican actor Gael García Bernal
Gael García Bernal
Gael García Bernal is a Mexican film actor and director.-Early life:García Bernal was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the son of Patricia Bernal, an actress and former model, and José Ángel García, an actor and director. His stepfather is Sergio Yazbek, whom his mother married when García Bernal was...
has also recently received international notoriety in films by Spanish directors.
The new Spanish cinema
In 1962, José María García Escudero became the Director General of Cinema, propelling forward state efforts and the Escuela Oficial de Cine (Official Cinema School), from which emerged the majority of new directors, generally from the political left and those opposed to the Franco dictatorship. Among these were Mario Camus, Miguel PicazoMiguel Picazo
-External links:...
, Francisco Regueiro
Francisco Regueiro
Francisco Regueiro is a Spanish film director and screenwriter. He directed twelve films between 1962 and 1993.-Selected filmography:* The Good Love * Padre nuestro -External links:...
, Manuel Summers, and, above all, Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...
. Apart from this line of directors, Fernando Fernán Gómez
Fernando Fernán Gómez
Fernando Fernán-Gómez was a Spanish actor and director. He was born in Lima, Peru as his mother, Spanish actress Carola Fernán-Gómez, was making a tour of Latin America. Inheriting his surname as a stage name, he moved to Spain in 1924.After the Spanish Civil War he began a study of Law but...
made the classic El extraño viaje
El extraño viaje
El extraño viaje is a 1964 Spanish black drama film directed by Fernando Fernán Gómez.Famous film director Jess Franco acts as the brother of the protagonist. The film was a huge flop on its limited release. It was voted seventh best Spanish film by professionals and critics in 1996 Spanish cinema...
(The Strange Trip) (1964) and Víctor Erice
Víctor Erice
Víctor Erice Aras is a Spanish film director.He studied law, political science, and economics at the University of Madrid. He also attended the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografia in 1963 to study film direction...
created the internationally acclaimed El espíritu de la colmena
The Spirit of the Beehive
The Spirit of the Beehive is a 1973 Spanish drama film directed by Victor Erice. The film was Erice's debut and is considered a masterpiece of Spanish cinema...
(The Spirit of the Beehive) (1973). From television came Jaime de Armiñan, author of Mi querida señorita
Mi querida señorita
Mi querida señorita is a 1972 Spanish film directed by Jaime de Armiñán. A black comedy on the subject of sex change, it was the first Spanish film that talked about sexual orientation, which was a taboo subject in Spain during Franco's regime....
(My Dear Lady) (1971).
From the so-called Escuela de Barcelona
Barcelona School of Film
The Barcelona School was a 1960s group of Catalan filmmakers, concerned with the disruption of daily life by the unexpected, whose stylistic affinities lie with the pop art movement of the same years. Their aim was to move away from the social realist films that had become associated with the New...
, originally more experimentalist and cosmopolitan, come Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda
Vicente Aranda , is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Due to his refined and personal style, he is one of the most renowned Spanish filmmakers. He started as a founded member of the Barcelona School of Film and became known for bringing contemporary Spanish novels to life on the...
, Jaime Camino
Jaime Camino
Jaime Camino is a Spanish film director and screenwriter. He directed 16 films between 1962 and 2001. His 1976 film Long Vacations of 36 was entered into the 26th Berlin International Film Festival...
, and Gonzalo Suárez
Gonzalo Suárez
Gonzalo Suárez Morilla is a Spanish writer, screenwriter and film director.-Career:In 1963 he published his first novel De cuerpo presente....
, who made their master works in the 1980s.
The San Sebastian International Film Festival
San Sebastián International Film Festival
The San Sebastián International Film Festival is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of San Sebastián .-History:The festival was founded in 1953...
is a major film festival supervised by the FIAPF
FIAPF
The FIAPF based in Paris, created in 1933, is an organization composed with 31 member associations from 25 of the leading audiovisual production countries...
. It was started in 1953, and it takes place in San Sebastián
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
every year. Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
, Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
are some of the stars that have participated in this festival, the most important in Spain and one of the best cinema festivals in the world.
The Festival de Cine de Sitges
Festival de Cine de Sitges
The Sitges Film Festival is a Spanish film festival that is one of the most recognizable ones held in Europe, considered the world's foremost international festival specializing in fantasy and horror movies...
, now known as the Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya (International Film Festival of Catalonia), was started in 1967. It is considered one of the best cinematographic contests in Europe, and is the best in the specialty of science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
.
The cinema of the democratic era
With the end of dictatorship, censorship was greatly loosened and cultural works were permitted in other languages spoken in Spain besides Spanish, resulting in the founding of the Catalan Institute of Cinema, among others.At the beginning, the popular phenomena of striptease
Striptease
A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner...
and landismo (from Alfredo Landa
Alfredo Landa
Alfredo Landa Areitio is a Spanish actor.- Biography :He was born in Pamplona, Navarra, Spain. He finished his pre-university studies in San Sebastián. He then began university studies on Law, where he began to work with university school groups...
) triumph. During the democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, a whole new series of directors base their films either on controversial topics or on revising the country's history. Jaime Chávarri
Jaime Chávarri
Jaime Chávarri y de la Mora is a Spanish actor, screenwriter and film director. His mother María de la Mora y Maura was a maternal granddaughter of Antonio Maura....
, Víctor Erice
Víctor Erice
Víctor Erice Aras is a Spanish film director.He studied law, political science, and economics at the University of Madrid. He also attended the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografia in 1963 to study film direction...
, José Luis Garci
José Luis Garci
José Luis Garci is a producer, critic, TV presenter, writer, screenwriter and film director in Spanish cinema. He earned worldwide acclaim and his country's first Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Begin the Beguine...
, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón
Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón is an award-winning Spanish screenwriter and film director. His 1973 film Habla, mudita was entered into the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival. In 1977, he won the Silver Bear for Best Director for Camada negra at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival...
, Eloy de la Iglesia
Eloy de la Iglesia
Eloy de la Iglesia was a Spanish screenwriter and film director.De la Iglesia was an outspoken gay socialist filmmaker who is relatively unknown outside of Spain despite a prolific and successful career in his native country...
, Pilar Miró
Pilar Miró
Pilar Miró was a Spanish screenwriter and film director.She directed TVE from 1986 to 1989, and in the 90's, the weddings of the daughters of King Juan Carlos I. In 1992, her film Beltenebros won the Silver Bear for an outstanding artistic contribution at the 42nd Berlin International Film...
and Pedro Olea were some of these who directed great films. Montxo Armendáriz
Montxo Armendáriz
Montxo Armendariz, born Ramón Armendariz Barrios, in Olleta, Orbaibar, in Navarra , Spain 1949, is an awarded Spanish screenwriter and film director....
or Juanma Bajo Ulloa
Juanma Bajo Ulloa
Juan Manuel Bajo Ulloa is a Spanish Basque film director.- Biography :Juanma Bajo Ulloa was born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain in 1967. He mortgage his house to obtain the money to produce his first film in 35mm, Alas de Mariposa...
's "new Basque cinema" has also been outstanding; another prominent Basque director is Julio Médem
Julio Medem
Julio Médem is a Spanish writer and film director.Medem was born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain and showed an interest in movies since childhood, when he would take his father's Super 8 camera and shoot at night, while nobody was paying attention...
.
The Spanish cinema, however, depends on the great hits of the so-called Madrileño comedy by Fernando Colomo
Fernando Colomo
Fernando Colomo , is a Spanish film producer, screenwriter and film director. He has acted in small roles in his films and others.- Filmography :*1973 Mañana llega el presidente *1974 En un país imaginario...
or Fernando Trueba
Fernando Trueba
Fernando Trueba is a Spanish book editor, screenwriter, film director and producer.Between 1974 and 1979 worked as a film critic for Spain's leading daily newspaper EL PAIS. In 1980, founded the monthly film magazine CASABLANCA, which he edited and directed during its first two years...
, the sophisticated melodramas by Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular...
, Alex de la Iglesia
Álex de la Iglesia
Alejandro "Álex" de la Iglesia Mendoza is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, film producer and former comic book artist.Most of De La Iglesia's films reached cult status due to their weird sense of humour.- Biography :...
and Santiago Segura
Santiago Segura
Santiago Segura Silva is a Spanish film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.Santiago was born in the Carabanchel neighbourhood in Madrid. After studying Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, he decided to pursue a career as a film-maker and in 1989 he directed the short Relatos de...
's black humour or Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...
's works, in such a manner that, according to producer José Antonio Félez, "50% of total box office revenues comes from five titles, and between 8 and 10 films give 80% of the total" during the year 2004.
| Year | Total number of spectators (millions) | Spectators of Spanish cinema (millions) | Percentage | Film | Spectators (millions) | Percentage over the total of Spanish cinema |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | 96.2 | 10.4 | 10.8% | Two Much Two Much Two Much is a 1995 romantic screwball comedy film based on Donald Westlake's novel of the same name, and is also a remake of the 1984 French comedy film Le Jumeau, which was also based on Westlake's novel. Directed by Fernando Trueba, Two Much stars Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah... (Fernando Trueba Fernando Trueba Fernando Trueba is a Spanish book editor, screenwriter, film director and producer.Between 1974 and 1979 worked as a film critic for Spain's leading daily newspaper EL PAIS. In 1980, founded the monthly film magazine CASABLANCA, which he edited and directed during its first two years... ) |
2.1 | 20.2% |
| 1997 | 107.1 | 13.9 | 14.9% | Airbag Airbag (film) Airbag is a 1997 Spanish film written and directed by Juanma Bajo Ulloa.- Cast:* Fernando Guillén Cuervo as Konradín* Karra Elejalde as Juantxo* Alberto San Juan as Pako* Manuel Manquiña as Pazos* Maria de Medeiros as Fátima do Espíritu Santo... (Juanma Bajo Ulloa Juanma Bajo Ulloa Juan Manuel Bajo Ulloa is a Spanish Basque film director.- Biography :Juanma Bajo Ulloa was born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain in 1967. He mortgage his house to obtain the money to produce his first film in 35mm, Alas de Mariposa... ) |
2.1 | 14.1% |
| 1998 | 119.8 | 14.1 | 13.3% | Torrente, The Stupid Arm of the Law Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley is a 1998 Spanish dark comedy written, directed and starred by Santiago Segura.- Plot:Torrente is a lazy, rude, drunkard, sexist, racist, extreme-right-wing Madrid cop; a despicable character who only cares about himself. He lives in a decrepit slum with his... (Santiago Segura Santiago Segura Santiago Segura Silva is a Spanish film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.Santiago was born in the Carabanchel neighbourhood in Madrid. After studying Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, he decided to pursue a career as a film-maker and in 1989 he directed the short Relatos de... ) |
3 | 21.3% |
| 1999 | 131.3 | 18.1 | 16% | All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular... ) |
2.5 | 13.8% |
| 2000 | 135.3 | 13.4 | 11% | Commonwealth La comunidad (film) La comunidad is a 2000 Spanish black comedy film directed by Álex de la Iglesia.-Plot:Carmen Maura plays a real estate agent who discovers a fortune in the apartment of a dead man... (Álex de la Iglesia Álex de la Iglesia Alejandro "Álex" de la Iglesia Mendoza is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, film producer and former comic book artist.Most of De La Iglesia's films reached cult status due to their weird sense of humour.- Biography :... ) |
1.6 | 11.9% |
| 2001 | 146.8 | 26.2 | 17.9% | The Others The Others (2001 film) The Others is a 2001 psychological horror film by the Spanish-Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar, starring Nicole Kidman. It is inspired partly by the novella The Turn of the Screw.... (Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth... ) |
6.2 | 23.8% |
| 2002 | 140.7 | 19.0 | 13.5% | The Other Side of the Bed (Emilio Martínez Lázaro Emilio Martínez Lázaro Emilio Martínez Lázaro is a Spanish film director famous for such films as The Other Side of the Bed and His Master's Voice.... ) |
2.7 | 14.3% |
| 2003 | 137.5 | 21.7 | 15.8% | Mortadelo & Filemón: The Big Adventure La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón is a 2003 Spanish language film based on the popular Spanish comic book series Mortadelo y Filemón by Francisco Ibáñez Talavera. The film was directed by Javier Fesser and stars Benito Pocino and Pepe Viyuela.... (Javier Fesser Javier Fesser Javier Fesser is a Spanish film director and publicist.Fesser earned his degree in Communication studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid... ) |
5.0 | 22.9% |
| 2004 | 143.9 | 19.3 | 13.4% | The Sea Inside Mar adentro The Sea Inside is a 2004 film by the Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar. It is based on the real-life story of Ramón Sampedro , a Spanish ship mechanic left quadriplegic after a diving accident and his 29-year campaign in support of euthanasia and the right to end his life.- Plot summary :This is... (Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth... ) |
4.0 | 20.7% |
| 2005 | 126.0 | 21.0 | 16.7% | Torrente 3: The Protector (Santiago Segura Santiago Segura Santiago Segura Silva is a Spanish film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.Santiago was born in the Carabanchel neighbourhood in Madrid. After studying Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid, he decided to pursue a career as a film-maker and in 1989 he directed the short Relatos de... ) |
3.6 | 16.9% |
| 2006 | 121,6 | 18,7 | 15,4% | Alatriste Alatriste Alatriste is a 2006 Spanish historical film directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes, based on the main character of a series of novels written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Adventures of Captain Alatriste .... |
3,3 | 17,6% |
| 2007 | 116,9 | 15,7 | 13,4% | The Orphanage The Orphanage (2007 film) The Orphanage is a 2007 Spanish-Mexican horror film and the debut feature of Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona. The film stars Belén Rueda as Laura, Fernando Cayo as her husband, Carlos, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot centers on Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an... |
4,4 | 32,8% |
| 2008 | 107,8 | 14,36 | 13,3% | The Oxford Murders The Oxford Murders (film) The Oxford Murders is a 2008 film directed by Álex de la Iglesia. This thriller film is adapted from the novel of the same name by the Argentine mathematician and writer Guillermo Martínez. The film stars Elijah Wood, John Hurt and the Spanish actress Leonor Watling.-Plot:It is 1993... |
1,42 | 9,93% |
| 2009 | 110,0 | 17,48 | 15,9% | Agora Agora (film) Agora is a 2009 Spanish historical drama film directed by Alejandro Amenábar and written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil. The biopic stars Rachel Weisz as Hypatia, a female mathematician, philosopher and astronomer in 4th century Roman Egypt who investigates the flaws of the geocentric Ptolemaic system... |
3,48 | 19,91% |
| 2010 | 101,6 | 12,93 | 12,7% | Three Steps Above Heaven Three Steps Above Heaven Three Steps Above Heaven is a 2010 Spanish film based on the novel of the same name by Federico Moccia.... |
1,57 | 12,14% |
In 1987, a year after the founding of the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España
Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España
The Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España is a Spanish professional organisation dedicated to the promotion and development of Spanish cinema...
, the Goya Awards
Goya Awards
The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....
were created to recognize excellence in many aspects of Spanish motion picture making such as acting, directing and screenwriting. The first ceremony took place on March 16, 1987 at the Teatro Lope de Vega, Madrid. The ceremony continues to take place annually around the end of January, and awards are given to films produced during the previous year. The award itself is a small bronze bust of Francisco de Goya created by the sculptor José Luis Fernández
José Luis Fernández
José Luis Fernández is an Argentine football midfielder. He currently plays for Estudiantes, on loan from SL Benfica. Fernández is a left-footed player who usually plays on the left wing.-International career:...
.
English language Spanish films
English language Spanish films produced by Spanish companies include Two MuchTwo Much
Two Much is a 1995 romantic screwball comedy film based on Donald Westlake's novel of the same name, and is also a remake of the 1984 French comedy film Le Jumeau, which was also based on Westlake's novel. Directed by Fernando Trueba, Two Much stars Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah...
(directed by Fernando Trueba
Fernando Trueba
Fernando Trueba is a Spanish book editor, screenwriter, film director and producer.Between 1974 and 1979 worked as a film critic for Spain's leading daily newspaper EL PAIS. In 1980, founded the monthly film magazine CASABLANCA, which he edited and directed during its first two years...
, 1995), The Others
The Others (2001 film)
The Others is a 2001 psychological horror film by the Spanish-Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar, starring Nicole Kidman. It is inspired partly by the novella The Turn of the Screw....
(Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...
, 2001), The Machinist
The Machinist
The Machinist is a 2004 English-language Spanish psychological thriller film directed by Brad Anderson and written by Scott Kosar....
(Brad Anderson
Brad Anderson
Brad Anderson may refer to:*Brad Anderson , American cartoonist most famous for creating the comic strip Marmaduke*Brad Anderson , American film director...
, 2004), Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct 2, also known as Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, is a 2006 German/British/American/Spanish thriller film and the sequel to 1992's Basic Instinct. The film was directed by Michael Caton-Jones and produced by Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels, and Andrew G. Vajna. The screenplay was by...
(produced by KanZaman Spain, 2006) or Miloš Forman
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for...
’s Goya's Ghosts
Goya's Ghosts
Goya's Ghosts is a 2006 Spanish/American film directed by Miloš Forman, and produced by Xuxa Producciones and by Saul Zaentz, and written by Miloš Forman and Jean-Claude Carrière. The film stars Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, and Stellan Skarsgård, and was filmed on location in Spain during late...
(Xuxa Produciones, 2006).
KanZaman (Spain) and Recorded Picture Company (UK) co-produced Sexy Beast
Sexy Beast
Sexy Beast is a 2000 British-Spanish crime drama film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was Glazer's debut feature film, who had previously been a music video director for videos such as Rabbit in Your Headlights for...
, directed by Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer is an English director of films, commercials and music videos.-Biography:After studying theatre design at Nottingham Trent University, Glazer started out directing theatre and making film and television trailers, including award-winning work for the BBC...
, in 1999. Films co-produced by this company include The Reckoning (Paul McGuigan
Paul McGuigan (filmmaker)
Paul McGuigan is a film director, best known for directing films such as Lucky Number Slevin and Push. He has also directed episodes of Sherlock and Monroe.-Filmography:-Awards:...
, 2003), The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004 film)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 2004 drama film directed by Mary McGuckian and featuring an ensemble cast of American and international actors. It is based on Thornton Wilder's novel of the same name. The film was released in 2004 in Spain and 2005 in the U.S. and abroad...
, based on the Pulitzer prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
novel of the same name
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the...
and directed by Mary McGuckian
Mary McGuckian
Mary McGuckian is a film director, producer and screenwriter from Northern Ireland.-Early life:Born and brought up in Northern Ireland during the 'troubles', Mary McGuckian completed her formal education in the Republic of Ireland at Trinity College Dublin, where she took a degree in engineering...
. It featured an ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
consisting of Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
, Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
and Spanish actress Pilar López de Ayala
Pilar López de Ayala
Pilar López de Ayala Arroyo is a Spanish film actress. She received a Goya for her role as Queen Joanna of Castile in the 2001 film Juana la Loca, directed by Vicente Aranda ....
. Other films in this category are Mike Barker
Mike Barker
Mike Barker co-created the television show American Dad! along with Seth MacFarlane and Matt Weitzman...
's A Good Woman
A Good Woman (film)
A Good Woman is a 2004 drama film directed by Mike Barker. The screenplay by Howard Himelstein is based on the 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde...
(2004), and Sahara
Sahara (2005 film)
Sahara is a 2005 action-comedy adventure film directed by Breck Eisner and based on the best-selling book of the same name by Clive Cussler...
(Breck Eisner
Breck Eisner
Michael "Breck" Eisner is an American television and film director.-Early life:Eisner was born Michael Eisner in California, the son of Jane Breckenridge, a business advisor and computer programmer, and Michael Eisner, the former Walt Disney Company chief executive...
, 2005). In 2004, KanZaman co-produced Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
's epic film Kingdom of Heaven
Kingdom of Heaven (film)
Kingdom of Heaven is a 2005 epic action film directed by Ridley Scott and written by William Monahan. It stars Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McKidd, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Edward Norton, Jon Finch, Michael Sheen and Liam...
, making it the biggest production in the history of Spanish cinema.
Further reading
- Marsha Kinder: Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain, University of California Press, 1993, ISBN 0520081579
- Marvin D'Lugo: Guide to the Cinema of Spain (Reference Guides to the World's Cinema), Greenwood Pub Group, 1997
- Nuria Triana-Toribio: Spanish National Cinema (National Cinemas Series), Routledge 2002, ISBN 0415220602
- The Cinema of Spain and Portugal (24 Frames (Paper), ed. by Alberto Mira, Wallflower Press 2005 – 24 films are analyzed
- Ronald Schwartz: Great Spanish Films Since 1950, Scarecrow Press, 2008
- Tatjana Pavlovic: 100 Years of Spanish Cinema, John Wiley & Sons, 2008
See also
- Cinema of the world
- World cinemaWorld cinemaWorld cinema is a term used primarily in English language speaking countries to refer to the films and film industries of non-English speaking countries. It is therefore often used interchangeably with the term foreign film...
- Spanish artSpanish artSpanish art is the visual art of Spain, and that of Spanish artists worldwide. Whilst an important contributor to Western art and producing many famous and influential artists Spanish art has often had distinctive characteristics and been assessed...
- History of SpainHistory of SpainThe history of Spain involves all the other peoples and nations within the Iberian peninsula formerly known as Hispania, and includes still today the nations of Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain...
- Spanish LiteratureSpanish literatureSpanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...
External links
- Top 10 movies from Spain according to IMDB.com
- Discussion of 10 key films in Spanish cinema at subtitledonline.com
- Ministry of Culture of Spain, Cinema Web
- Official website of Viva Pedro series celebrating the film's of Pedro Almodovar
- Spanish movie reviews
- Silver Screen Spain. Information about shooting locations around Spain of English-language movies.