Agustí Villaronga Explained

Birth Date:1953 3, df=yes
Birth Place:Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Death Place:Barcelona, Spain
Occupation:Film director, screenwriter, actor
Yearsactive:1976–2023
Birth Name:Agustí Villaronga Riutort

Agustí Villaronga Riutort (in Catalan; Valencian pronounced as /əɣusˈti βiʎəˈɾoŋɡə/; 4 March 1953 – 22 January 2023)[1] was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor.[2] He directed several feature films, a documentary, three projects for television and three shorts. His film Moon Child was entered into the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.[3]

His auteur approach to filmmaking was described by ScreenDaily as demostrative of "a keen insight into human pain and cruelty".[4] In 2011 he won the Goya Award for Best Director for Black Bread. The Catalan-language film was selected as the Spanish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards,[5] but it did not make the final shortlist.[6]

Life and career

Agustí Villaronga was born on 4 March 1953 in Palma. His grandparents were itinerant puppeteers and his father was a child of the Spanish Civil War, a background that would resurface repeatedly in the director's filmography.[7] Since childhood, his father encouraged his love for films and from early in his life he wanted to become a film director. He worked as an actor and made some shorts.

Villaronga made his directorial debut in 1986 with the film In a Glass Cage, which was selected by the Berlin film festival receiving critical praise and many awards. The plot follows a former Nazi doctor, now paralyzed and depending on an iron lung to live, who begins to be taken care of by a young man, one of the children he abused during the war. In a Glass Cage already shows some of the key elements in Villaronga's filmography: a disturbed childhood marked by violence, an early discovery of sexuality.

His second film, Moon Child (1989), is about a child who goes to Africa to join a tribe awaiting the arrival of white child God.[8] In 1992 he made a documentary, Al-Andalus, produced by Sogetel and the MoMa of New York City.[9] [10] For some years Villaronga tried unsuccessfully to find financing to adapt a novel by Mercè Rodoreda, La mort i la primavera.[11] Instead he had to take some commission works. One of these was El pasajero clandestino, an adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel, that lacked the personal characteristics of his filmography.[12] [13]

Called by actress María Barranco, Villaronga directed the 1997 horror film 99.9, which won the award for Best Cinematography at the 1997 Sitges Film Festival.[14] In 2000, Villaronga came back with a project of his own: El mar, a story set in Mallorca about three former childhood friends, traumatized by the violence they experienced during the Spanish Civil War, that are reunited ten years later as young adults. The key elements in Villaronga's filmography are present in this story: childhood, sexual awakening, homosexuality and violence.

In 2002, Villaronga co-directed with Lydia Zimmermann and Isaac Pierre Racine the film . In 2005 he directed a music video for French superstar Mylène Farmer's song Fuck Them All.[15] In 2007 he made Después de la lluvia, a made for television project adapting a stage play. It was only until 2010 with Black Bread, when Villaronga finally achieved wider appeal. This film, winner of nine Goya Awards including best film and best director, tells the story of an eleven year old boy who growing up in the harsh period of the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in Catalonia's countryside discovers the world of lies around him.

Villaronga followed Black Breads success with A Letter to Evita, a TV miniseries co-produced by TV3, which recounts a real episode in the life of Eva Perón while visiting Spain in the late 1940s.

Villaronga was openly gay.[16] He died on 22 January 2023 in Barcelona, at the age of 69.[17] At the time of his death, he had one project, Stormy Lola, outstanding. It was shot in 2022, and was his first comedy film.[18] [19] [20]

Villaronga received the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts on 1 December 2022.[21]

Filmography

Film

YearTitleDirectorWriterNotes
1986In a Glass CageManfred Salzberg Award at the Berlin film festival[22]
1989Moon Child
1992Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic SpainDocumentary medium-length film[23]
199799.9
2000The SeaBased on a novel by Blai Bonet.
2002Co-directed with Isaac Pierre Racine and Lydia Zimmermann.
2010Black BreadWinner of nine Goya Awards, including best film, best director and best adapted screenplay.
2015The King of Havana[24]
2017Uncertain GloryBased on the novel Uncertain Glory by Joan Sales.[25]
2019 Born a KingUnited Kingdom and United Arab Emmirates production[26]
2021The Belly of the Sea[27]
2023Stormy LolaPosthumously released work[28]

Short film

YearTitleDirectorWriterNotes
1976Anta mujer
1980Al Mayurka
Laberint
2000Gracia ExquisitaShort films anthology
2005Fuck Them AllMusic video for Mylène Farmer
2015El Testament de Rosa

Television

YearTitleDirectorWriterNotes
1995Cycle SimenonTV Anthology serie
Episode "Le passages clandestin"
1997Croniques de la vertat ocultaEpisode "Pedagogia Aplicada"
2007Miguel Bauça, Poeta InvisibleTV Movie
Despues de La Lluvia
200950 años de..Documentary TV Series
Episode "Fe"
2012Carta a EvaTV Mini-series
2 episodes

Accolades

YearAwardCategoryWorkResult
19904th Goya AwardsBest DirectorMoon Child[29]
Best Original Screenplay
20113rd Gaudí AwardsBest DirectorBlack Bread[30]
Best Screenplay
25th Goya Awards[31]
20168th Gaudí AwardsBest DirectorThe King of Havana[32] [33]
Best Screenplay
30th Goya AwardsBest Adapted Screenplay[34]
201810th Gaudí AwardsBest DirectorUncertain Glory [35] [36]
Best Screenplay
202236th Goya AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayThe Belly of the Sea[37]
14th Gaudí AwardsBest Director[38]
Best Screenplay

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Agustí Villaronga. AlloCiné. 2 March 2016. fr.
  2. Web site: Agustí Villaronga . 18 November 2011 . spainisculture.
  3. Web site: Festival de Cannes: Moon Child . 1 August 2009. festival-cannes.com.
  4. Web site: Agustí Villaronga, ‘Black Bread’, ‘The Sea’ director, dies aged 69. ScreenDaily. 22 January 2023. Emilio. Mayorga.
  5. Web site: "PA NEGRE" REPRESENTARÁ A ESPAÑA EN LOS OSCAR . 28 September 2011. CBC. 28 September 2011 .
  6. Web site: 9 Foreign Language Films Vie for Oscar . 19 January 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120518164323/http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2012/20120118.html . 18 May 2012 .
  7. Web site: The Secret of Black Bread. Levine. Sydney. 11 January 2012. IndieWire. 7 July 2016. Nor was [''Black Bread''] Villaronga's first film about children in the post Spanish Civil War era. [''The Sea''], In a Glass Cage and [''Aro Tolbukhin. En la mente del asesino''] all spoke of the consequences of the war, the perversions of war which changes the nautre of human beings, now, after, in the future and before. The perversions of war most interests Villaronga..
  8. Web site: EL NINO DE LA LUNA . 2023-01-22 . Cannes Festival . en.
  9. Web site: 2011-07-22 . Agustí Villaronga, el director de la mirada poética . 2023-01-22 . RTVE . es.
  10. Web site: El 'GOYA 2011 Mejor Dirección' ha sido para Agustí Villaronga « Blog del Instituto Cervantes Nueva York . 2023-01-22 . es.
  11. Web site: Lardín . Rubén . Agustí Villaronga . 2023-01-22 . Vice . es.
  12. Web site: Colmena . Enrique . El pasajero clandestino - Criticalia.com . 2023-01-23 . Criticalia . es.
  13. Web site: El Pasajero Clandestino . Catálogo de Cine Español - I.C.A.A..
  14. News: Torreiro. Casimiro. 19 October 1997. El festival de cine de Sitges se clausura con unos premios polémicos. El Pais. es. 22 November 2022.
  15. Web site: Mylene.Net - Le site référence sur Mylène Farmer. Julien AUTIER. Philippe LEZE. Guillaume DATEZ. Sarah HOFER. amp. mylene.net. 30 March 2016.
  16. Web site: Darkness in Berlin. 20 January 2013. The Advocate. 11 April 2000. 46.
  17. Web site: Agustí Villaronga, 'Black Bread', 'The Sea' director, dies aged 69. ScreenDaily. Emilio. Mayorga. 22 January 2023.
  18. Web site: Muere a los 69 años el cineasta Agustí Villaronga, director de 'Pa negre'. Onda Cero. 22 January 2023.
  19. Web site: Agustí Villaronga rueda su primera comedia con Susi Sánchez, "Loli Tormenta". Cadena COPE. 13 July 2022.
  20. Web site: Muere el director Agustí Villaronga ('Pa Negre') a los 69 años. 22 January 2023. Cinemanía. 20minutos.es.
  21. Web site: El director de cine Agustí Villaronga recoge la Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes. Europa Press. 1 December 2022.
  22. Web site: Agustí Villaronga - Filmography . https://web.archive.org/web/20170419163209/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2bc5bc40e8 . dead . 19 April 2017 . 2023-01-22 . BFI . en.
  23. Web site: AL-ANDALUS. LAS ARTES ISLAMICAS EN ESPAÑA . 2023-01-22 . Catálogo de Cinespañol I.C.A.A..
  24. Web site: Film Review: 'The King of Havana'. Variety. 1 October 2015. Guy. Lodge.
  25. Web site: INCIERTA GLORIA . 2023-01-22 . Catálogo de Cinespañol I.C.A.A..
  26. Web site: Agusti Villaronga's 'Born a King' Catches Box Office Fire in UAE, Saudi Arabia. Variety. 4 October 2019. John. Hopewell.
  27. Web site: 'The Belly Of The Sea': Moscow Review. ScreenDaily. Neil. Young. 25 April 2021.
  28. Web site: Muere el cineasta Agustí Villaronga, director de 'Pa Negre', a los 69 años en Barcelona. El Confidencial. 22 January 2023.
  29. Web site: El niño de la luna. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. premiosgoya.com. 23 January 2023.
  30. Web site: III Gaudí Awards. 2021-06-03. www.academiadelcinema.cat.
  31. Web site: Pa negre. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. premiosgoya.com. 23 January 2023.
  32. Web site: Nominaciones a los Premios Gaudí 2016. 30 December 2015. Fotogramas.
  33. Web site: Todos los ganadores de los Gaudí 2016. El Periódico de Catalunya. 1 February 2016.
  34. Web site: El Rey de La Habana. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. premiosgoya.com. 23 January 2023.
  35. Web site: Totes les nominacions als Gaudí 2018. 3/24. Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals. 28 December 2017.
  36. News: 'Estiu 1993' triomfa en uns premis Gaudí marcats per l'excepcionalitat política. VilaWeb. ca. 31 October 2021. 28 January 2020.
  37. Web site: El vientre del mar. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. premiosgoya.com. 23 January 2023.
  38. Web site: Los Gaudí encumbran a Neus Ballús y Clara Roquet por 'Sis dies corrents' y 'Libertad'. Cine con Ñ. 7 March 2022.