Agustí Villaronga, director of 'Pa negre', a singular creator in Spanish cinema, dies at the age of 69

The Mallorcan filmmaker Agustí Villaronga, director of

(2010), has died at dawn this Sunday at the age of 69 in Barcelona, ​​after a week in palliative care.

Cancer, against which he has fought for the last two years of his life, has ended with an absolutely unique filmmaker, born outside of the dominant tendencies in Spain, against the current, to which was added his profound humanity.

His inner world, sometimes turbulent, sometimes dark, always incandescent, found a reflection on the screen.

“Although I don't find people very close to my style, today I think I'm not a weirdo.

I simply do what I can ”, he recounted at the end of 2021 reviewing his filmography.

And from those twists and turns and from that humanity came films like

—which won nine Goya awards at the gala where the Film Academy celebrated its 25th anniversary— ,

or

Villaronga, who began his first artistic steps as an actor, soon turned to directing.

And the cinema thus gained a brilliant creator, who has marked the following generations of filmmakers by teaching them how to tell emotionally complex plots with simplicity and poetry, to lose their fear of delving into the folds of history.

More information

Agustí Villaronga: endearing, moving and magnificent

The Acadèmia del Cinema Català announced his death early on Sunday: “This morning the film director Agustí Villaronga left us in Barcelona, ​​accompanied by his dear family and friends.

His talent, his sensitivity, his enormous capacity to love everything he touched and his films will remain forever”.

In addition to his three Goya awards (two as a screenwriter for

and

and a third for the direction of the latter), Villaronga was the National Film Award in 2011;

Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (which he collected on December 1);

two Ariel awards for Mexican cinema, another two Gaudí awards for Catalan cinema and four Sant Jordi trophies.

“I suppose I am a cult filmmaker”, he joked in 2011, after receiving the call from the Ministry of Culture announcing the national award.

And he pointed out then: "For me it is something wonderful because one makes films to communicate and see that what you have done reaches the public gives me great joy."

That eclecticism and that desire to reach the public explain several of his passions.

First, because no matter how complex the emotional dynamics that secretly moved his characters were, and no matter how risky their portrayal on screen was, Villaronga never forgot that his aspiration was that the more people see him, the better.

And second, her love for Fernando Esteso, with whom she featured in

as a baker, and in

the film that Villaronga has filmed: starring Susi Sánchez, it tells the story of a woman who lives with her grandchildren, of those who took over when his daughter died, in a modest house on the outskirts of Barcelona.

When Lola's Alzheimer's progresses, the grandchildren begin to devise tricks so they don't get separated.

will be released this 2023.

The Mallorcan filmmaker Agustí Villaronga, director of 'Pa negre' (2010), has died at dawn this Sunday at the age of 69 in Barcelona, ​​after a week in palliative care.

In the image, Villaronga, with the Goya for Best Director for 'Pa negre'. Carlos R. Álvarez (Getty)

His inner world, sometimes turbulent, sometimes dark, always incandescent, found a reflection on the screen.

“Although I don't find people very close to my style, today I think I'm not a weirdo.

I simply do what I can ”he recounted at the end of 2021 reviewing his filmography.

In the image, Agustí Villaronga with the actress Rosa Novell, at the presentation of the film 'The clandestine passenger', in 1996.marcel.Lí Sáenz

In addition to his three Goya awards (two as a screenwriter for 'El niño de la luna' and 'Pa negre', and a third for directing the latter), Villaronga was awarded the National Cinematography Award in 2011;

Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (which he collected on December 1);

two Ariel awards for Mexican cinema, another two Gaudí awards for Catalan cinema and four Sant Jordi trophies.

In the image, Villaronga (in the center) directs the actress María Barranco in '99.9'.PC, SA / IMPALA, SA

The actors Ángela Molina and Simón Andreu (on the right), together with the director Agustí Villaronga, during the filming of 'El Mar', in 1999.carles ribas

From the left, the directors who brought their films to the 2000 Berlin Festival, Daniel Calparsoro, Gerardo Vera, Patricia Ferreira and Agustí Villaronga, photographed at the Spanish Film Library in Madrid.

louis magan

Villaronga poses for the newspaper EL PAÍS, on March 23, 2000. About his work, Villaronga had a wise reflection that today sounds premonitory, as defined by his synthesis between the human and the artistic: “Looking back, I admit that it attracts me how difficult situations mark people's childhood, how fate leaves many people lying in the ditch.

I have never been able to make kind films, I tend to have a tragic aspect”. Tejederas

Still from 'Aro Tolbukhin.

In the mind of the murderer', directed by Agustí Villaronga. OBERON CINEMATOGRAFICA / Entertainment Pictures / ContactoPhoto

The Mallorcan filmmaker Villaronga, at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2010. Jesús Uriarte

Popularity and widespread recognition, after decades of critical appreciation, did not reach him until 'Pa negre', in 2010. It was the first film to win the Goya for best film in an official language other than Spanish —curiously, this award yes, titles shot in English had obtained it before— and the drama that changed the rules of the Film Academy, which since the triumph of the two child actors of 'Pa negre' prohibited them from competing in the sections for best revelation performance under 16 years.

In the image, Marina Comas and Francesc Colomer, in a scene from 'Pa Negre'. cordon press

The directors candidates for the 2011 Goya Award for best direction.

From left to right: Agustí Villaronga for 'Pa Negre';

Rodrigo Cortés for 'Buried';

Iciar Bollain, for 'También la lluvia', and Álex de la Iglesia for 'Sad Ballad of Trumpet', photographed after the party for the candidates for the awards. Claudio Álvarez

The filmmaker Agustí Villaronga (on the right) gives instructions to members of the filming crew of the film 'Incerta glòria', based on the homonymous book by the Catalan writer Joan Sales, in 2016.Javier Cebollada (EFE)

The directors Agustí Villaronga, Carlos Marques and Carla Simón, at the party of candidates for the X Gaudí Awards, in Barcelona, ​​in 2017.Albert Garcia

Portrait of the filmmaker Agusti Villaronga at the Malaga Film Festival in 2021.garcía-santos

The King and Queen, Felipe VI and Doña Letizia, together with the President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres (on the left), and the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta (on the right), present the film director Agustí Villaronga with the Medal of Gold for Merit in Fine Arts 2021. Ramón de la Rocha (EFE)

Villaronga arrived at the cinema inheriting the passion of his father, a postman who came from a family of Catalan puppeteers.

That man who suffered the Civil War as a teenager, and who settled in Palma de Mallorca in search of a job that would support him, collected actor cards, and inoculated his son with a love of cinema.

So much so that Agustí made homemade “projections” with drawings, matchboxes and flashlights.

And for this reason, he remembered in the promotion of

that as a teenager he wrote a curious letter.

“A filmmaker who to some will seem ancient has left his mark on me, Ingmar Bergman, who always got deeply involved in the issues,” he reflected on his references.

But to whom he wrote a letter at the age of 14 was Roberto Rossellini.

“I wanted to go to his school, it's true.

They rejected me for being too young.

Today I don't like his cinema so much.

Now who I am passionate about is Pasolini, whom when I was young I was not able to appreciate.

He seems to me a complete artist ”.

Beginnings as a set designer

After graduating in Art History from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​he entered the Institut del Teatre, Barcelona's official school of performing arts, where he studied set design, an art that he kept present in all his cinema (one only has to recover his last premiered film,

As an actor, he even participated in a tour of the Núria Espert company with

From there he went to the cinema, in roles in

(1977),

1978) or

(1979).

However, it was the producer Pepón Corominas who changed his pace and led him back to the locker room, a task in which he worked in

(1982).

By the way, he was already directing shorts like

(1975),

(1976) and

(1980).

Villaronga made his debut as a director of feature films with

(1986), starring Marisa Paredes and Günter Meisner, a drama marked by the psychological terror that throbbed in the script, which focused on the end of an old Nazi who had abused dozens of children in their years of power, and which was screened at the Berlin festival.

Capable of mutating register, in 1989 he participated with

in Cannes (Goya for original screenplay and directing candidacy), a leap into the fantastic genre with Maribel Martín —who produced it— and Lucía Bosé.

The lukewarm reception he received led him to work in a pastry shop, as he recalled a little over a year ago:

"I wouldn't even know how to make cakes anymore... I was out of circulation for seven years, and I doubted, I doubted a lot about whether I would direct again."

More information

We will make a lot of movies!, by Isona Passola

The filmmaker struggled for a while to adapt Mercè Rodoreda's novel

Failing to find a producer, he accepts a commission: to make another book to the cinema, this one by Georges Simenon,

which also marked the beginning of his professional relationship and friendship with the producer Isona Passola.

Then

in 1997, Silver Mélies for the best European fantastic film at the Sitges festival;

(2000), a drama about homosexuality, the Manfred Salzberger Award for Newly Created and Independent Film at the Berlin Festival;

and

(2002), a film that surprised at the San Sebastián competition and that has been gaining followers over time.

'Pa negre' changed the rules

However, popularity and widespread recognition, after decades of critical appreciation, did not reach him until

It was the first film to win the Goya for best film in an official language other than Spanish —curiously, this award had been won before by titles shot in English— and the drama that changed the rules of the Film Academy, which since the triumph of the two child actors of

prohibited them from competing in the sections for best revelation interpretation under 16 years of age.

Based on two novels by Emili Teixidor, the film tells of the claustrophobic climate that a small town in Catalonia lives in the postwar period due to mysterious murders.

Andreu, the child protagonist, discovers, in his search for the truth, how the ghosts of the past mark the future of the adults he comes across.

The filmmaker Agustí Villaronga (on the right) gives instructions to members of the filming crew of the film 'Uncertain glory', based on the homonymous book by the writer Joan Sales, in 2016.Javier Cebollada (EFE)

He returned to that Civil War festering with bitterness in

(2017), which adapts the novel by Joan Sales about the Aragon front.

(2013) for TVE

, about Eva Perón's tour of Europe;

and

(2015), the embodiment of the irreverent novel by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, in which Villaronga failed to specify the disenchantment and sordidness of certain environments in the Cuban capital.

In theater, he made his directing debut in 2014 with

by Colm Tóibín, with Blanca Portillo as the protagonist.

And it was always open to new formats and bets, such as

(2016),

the film that showed the blind actress Rosa Novell, shortly before dying of cancer, rehearsing for the camera what was to be her last stage work and which was never made;

or to join the Black Caravan, an initiative devised by the writer Gabi Martínez, in which eight creators in 2018 grazed some 800 sheep for three days over 60 kilometers of pastures in La Serena and La Siberia in Extremadura.

Another curiosity: his appearance as a cold gangster in the Romanian film

(2019), by Corneliu Porumboiu, which brought him back to the Cannes festival, this time as an interpreter.

Agustí Villaronga, with his Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts 2021, on December 1.

Ramon de la Rocha (EFE)

In 2019,

the

of Faisal, the great monarch of Saudi Arabia, was released, produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez.

“I love cinema very much, I cannot feel like a mercenary.

had added incentives in addition to the economic one, such as filming in Arab countries.

I have not been involved in some other commissions because I have not seen myself in it, the truth ”, he assured.

With

(2021) he emerged creatively reinforced from confinement.

And awarded: he took six Biznagas from the Malaga festival.

Black and white adaptation of a chapter of

by Alessandro Baricco, with which he drew a parallel between the story of the shipwreck in 1816 of the frigate

and the 13 days that the initial 151 survivors wandered through the sea on a raft, of which only 15 remained when they were rescued, and the current voyages of small boats in the Mediterranean.

"I've been working on this story for almost two decades, and first I tried to premiere it as a play with two characters," he recounted at its premiere.

“During confinement I thought there was a movie there.

I shot it in Mallorca at the end of the quarantine, with a meager budget, and with total creative freedom, thanks to a very united team”.

About his work, Villaronga had a wise reflection that today sounds premonitory, as defined by his synthesis between the human and the artistic: “Looking back, I admit that I am attracted to how difficult situations mark people's childhoods, how fate leaves many people lying in the ditch.

I have never been able to make kind films, I tend towards the tragic aspect”.