Alex de la Iglesia For more than three decades, he has been developing one of the most heterodox, daring, even hooligan trajectories in Spanish cinematography. In this time, the Basque filmmaker has been able to define an inimitable voice, which has captivated thousands of spectators, who enthusiastically follow his prolific career. Since he surprised with his short Killer Lookswhich led Pedro Almodóvar’s production company, El Deseo, to finance his first feature film, the futuristic and delusional Mutant Action, De la Iglesia has filmed and signed 17 films, television series, advertisements and other audiovisual proposals, some of them unclassifiable. He combining, in most of them, terror, gore at times, fantasy, social portraiture or comedy, to create his own stamp that defines him. Few filmmakers are so endorsed in the Spanish film scene as to share his experiences in Essential Voices, within the Seville European Film Festival.
After the introduction of the critic and writer Fran G. Matute, De la Iglesia began his speech by acknowledging that “I do not feel essential, in fact I consider that we are all expendable in the cinematography of our country”, although he did acknowledge that “currently I occupy my own space, which allows me to continue directing and producing films and television series. In reference to his beginnings, the Basque filmmaker has ironically pointed out that “hate, jealousy and envy were the driving forces that drove me to be a filmmaker, especially when my friend Enrique Urbizu started shooting a movie. Until then, De la Iglesia was involved in the world of fanzines and comics, “I was about to publish in the Víbora”, and he has not hesitated to admit that “if he had earned more money and had more talent, he would have dedicated himself to to the comics, and not to the cinema”. From that past, he persists “that I continue to use the drawings in the scripts, and not those applications that everyone already uses”.
As for his facet as a producer (PokeepsieFilmsbeside Caroline Bang), De la Iglesia has pointed out “that now I have the ability to carry out projects that interest me, thanks to the position I hold.” He has already produced 15 titles and is working on another 30, including his new project, the fourth passengerthe new movie Jaume Balaguero, Venusthe new seasons of the series that he himself directs, 30 coinseither piety, by Eduardo Casanova, present at the Seville Film Festival. Asked about his insistence on working with the same team, the Bilbao-born director pointed out that “he has a lot of laziness, of comfort, since the shooting of a film is always a cascade of problems and I have people who they resolve as they appear. They are so involved in my projects that if I tell them you have to jump out of a window, they ask me if the one on the left or the one on the right”, joked the director. Regarding his references, Of the church He has indicated that “we are what we have in front of us, which are real people, the man that I meet in the elevator, the neighbor in the room or the frightening painting on the portal, which I have seen a million times, but also the different screens that we contemplate , and in those they have appeared Paco Martínez Soria, Lina Morgan, Brian de Palma or Hitchcock”. Regarding the latter, he has pointed out that he is fascinated “by his prodigious decade, the films he shot in the 50s and 60s, such as Vertigoeither rear window”. Just like he hasn’t hidden his attraction to Federico Fellini, John Ford or Sidney Lumet, “who never made an extraordinary film, but they were all very good.” Delving into his references, Alex de la Iglesia has expressed his passion for the cinema of the 80s and 90s, “ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, Blade Runner, The Goonies…It seemed that the good movies were never going to end, but they ended, to start imitating all those movies.
“Critics make up a lot of movies because they get bored,” said Álex de la Iglesia during his time with Essential Voices
The Basque director has not hesitated to defend “cinema as entertainment, where many things happen, since I do not like the films that are seen the wheels, because if you have time to analyze them, it is because you are getting bored”. With regard to the so-called Art and Essay cinema, he has commented that he is hardly interested, and that “over time I have realized that the critics invent films, they begin to find this or that message or symbol, because they get bored while they see them”. the step of Alex de la Iglesia in Essential Voices has ended with questions from the public. Many of them are aspiring filmmakers, who have raised questions with the director of The Day of the Beastrelated to his involvement with the actors, the use of special effects or the need to settle in Madrid in order to have options in the world of cinema. A vibrant meeting, full of humour, irony and clarity, that Álex de la Iglesia has had with the public that has packed the courtyard of the CICUS.
