DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY
This magnificent filmmaker is, along with Antonio Bardem, the personification of the renewal of the film in Spain.
He was born into a bourgeois family. He decided to study Law and Philosophy but his true vocation led him to join the Institute for Research and cinematic experiences of Madrid in 1947.
During his youth, when his father enters prison for being part of the Frente Popular, he left college to enlist in División Azul as a measure so that the authorities treat kindly on his father.
In 1951 he debuted with the comedy feature film Esa pareja feliz co-written and directed with Juan Antonio Bardem andstarring Fernando Fernan Gomez.
The film had a different orientation that hthers spanish films made after the civil war.
Bardem and Berlanga return to collaborate in 1952 with Bienvenido Mr. Marshall, with Miguel Mihura in the script. Its main actors were Pepe Isbert, Lolita Sevilla and Manolo Moran. The movie won several awards at the Cannes Film Festival. This movie exemplifies his films: usually choral and narrated in sequence shots, full of satire, criticism and a grotesque vision of the sociocultural and political reality in Spain.
His filmography also include Calabuch (1956), the story of a renowned nuclear scientist refuge in the small town of Calabuch tired of that his research are used in military interests. The film is awarded at the Venice Film Festival.
The 60s began with two of his most important works: Placido (1961), in 1961, starring Cassen and José Luis López Vázquez, which earned him an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film, and El verdugo(1963) comedy film starring Pepe Isbert, who again had considerable international impact, being awarded in Venice.
This was also his first collaboration with screenwriter Rafael Azcona, the author of titles like El pisito or El cochecito, by Marco Ferreri.
The seventies, with La escopeta nacional (1978) as best example was a time of transition and political freedom that ended paradoxically damaging film of its author, who try to overstep Francoist censorship with mills and tricks.
In the eighties his filmography is trivialized and never again performs the masterpieces of the past, but tries to keep the fun and critical tone that characterized his work in the past.
He has won international prizes and awards at major festivals (Cannes, Venice, Montreal, Berlin).
In Karlovy Vary Festival was awarded as one of the ten most important filmmakers in the world. He also has a countless number of national awards. Among the honors he has received we highlight the following: Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 1986, Gold Medal of Fine Arts in 1981, National Film Award in 1980 and he has been awarded the Italian Order of Commendatore.