Carlos Saura, according to young Spanish filmmakers: "Thank you for this legacy"

Director Carla Simón had the honor of presenting Carlos Saura, one of the creators who has inspired his career, with the Biznaga de Honor from the last Malaga festival.

There, she read the testimonials he had collected from fellow filmmakers about the teacher of several generations.

Here we collect the tribute.

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Carlos Saura dies at the age of 91, the last classic director of Spanish cinema

Carlos Vermut, in the karaoke where he filmed 'Who will sing to you', in 2018.

CARLOS VERMUT

“Saura is the closest thing to a magician that Spanish cinema has.

Through his gaze, a simple lipstick can be sharper than a knife.

Claudia Llosa, Peruvian film director.Bernardo Pérez

CLAUDIA LLOSA

"Thank you, Carlos Saura, for teaching us to erase the lines between reality and fantasy, past and present, wound and memory."

The director Carlos Marques-Marcet.

CARLOS MARQUES-MARCET

“Jeanette was playing on the record player when she looked at us.

She looked like she was looking at the camera, but she was really looking directly at us, inside of us, and she said: 'Let her die, let her die.'

And that day we learned that the monster also lived inside of us.

Clara Roquet at the Seville European Film Festival 2021.PACO PUENTES

CLARA ROQUET

“Saura's works have that indescribable poetry of cinema that explores the limits of language itself.

Of the cinema that endures, that of memory, of mental spaces, of mysteries, loss, ghosts and beauty.

Thank you, Carlos, for this inheritance, we owe you so much”.

Film director Jaime Rosales.Jaime Rosales

JAIME ROSALES

“If I had to define the essence of what is Spanish, it would be something that oscillates between hospitality, joy, enjoyment of life and envy, cruelty, humiliation of the other.

continues to be the film that has best captured that dark part of our culture.

In order to make such a fair and adequate portrait, two conditions must be met: a deep knowledge of our truths and a great love for everything Spanish”.

Leticia Dolera.Bernardo Pérez

LETICIA DOLERA

“Saura's mastery of combining poetic power and apparent narrative simplicity still seems overwhelming and tremendously aspirational to me.

is a place to return to to stimulate the imagination, feed freedom and connect with the ability, like its protagonist, to fantasize”.

Isaki Lacuesta. Marta Pérez (EFE)

ISAKI LACUESTA

"Saura, teacher, thank you for having opened up so many paths for us, always doing what you wanted."

Belén Funes, with the Goya for 'The daughter of a thief'.

BELÉN FUNES

“I discovered Carlos Saura watching

.

Those faces, that light, that Spain... With his films I realized that fiction could be a very powerful tool to talk about the present of a country and leave part of its history written in images.

Carlos, thank you for each and every one of the frames that you have filmed because they have inspired us and because, personally, they have made me want to make movies”.

The filmmaker Chema García Ibarra.UA (UA)

CHEMA GARCÍA IBARRA

“I have been obsessed for years with two sequences of

, my favorite Spanish movie: some kids sit on top of a hill watching cars go by, and shortly after they drive while listening

from Los Chunguitos.

Those moments condense all the truth that is possible in the cinema, all the beauty, all the mystery, all the simple and all the complicated.

Those two sequences contain all the movies I want to make."

The director Arantxa Echevarría gives instructions during the filming of 'Chinas', in the Madrid neighborhood of Usera.KIKE PARA

ARANTXA ECHEVARRÍA

“Saura's cinema was always in my subconscious:

or

are referential films for a whole generation of filmmakers.

Sara is a genius.

We only take advantage of his cinema ”.

Rodrigo Sorogoyen, with the Goya for Best Director for the film 'El reino'.PACO PUENTES

RODRIGO SOROGOYEN

“When I discovered Carlos Saura's films in my youth, my mind opened up.

,

and

form a trilogy that continues to be fascinating to me.

They are the most modern Spanish films I know.

They are more modern than most current movies.

Thanks to this cinema, it is understood that you always have to try to break with the established, that you never have to stop looking and that in the look of a girl, an ordinary guy or a woman surrounded by beasts, you can enclose the history of everything. a country".

The filmmaker Pilar Palomero in 2022.ÓSCAR CORRAL

PILAR PALOMERO

“When it comes time to prepare for shooting, I like to rewatch the films that have marked and influenced me the most as a filmmaker.

And said with pride, but also with the humility of someone he admires, many of these films are by Carlos Saura:

,

,

or

”.

The director Juan Antonio Bayona.SAMUEL SÁNCHEZ

JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA

especially captivated me with Saura

.

It was a story seen through the eyes of a child and the images of him seemed strangely similar to those of my uncles' house.

In that house hung, at the top of a very long staircase, a leg of ham that caused me real fear.

I also remember a painting that took up the entire wall of the dining room.

In it you could see a lonely Andalusian patio, which was a threshold to a world of mystery that I remember with the smell of the rabbit with garlic that my grandmother cooked.

Like that mural, Saura's films opened the door to another world, strange, enigmatic, unreal but close at the same time.

And above all to the idea that another fantastic cinema was possible”.

Isa Campo, screenwriter and film director at the 2022 San Sebastián Film Festival.javier Hernandez

ISA CAMPO

“Saura's look at the girl from

, this portrait of the child's perception of the world, with its simultaneous innocence and evil, shook me, and I think I am not exaggerating if I remember it as the only film I have ever seen. I came out thinking that I wanted to direct”.

A moment from the filming of 'Matria', with Álvaro Gago in the center.

ÁLVARO GAGO

“Saura's images breathe tenderness, delicacy and sensitivity.

They are images loaded with affection and stripped of that aggressiveness that is assumed in men.

As a male filmmaker, it is important for Saura to understand that he did not have to respond to the prevailing male gaze.

The director Elena López Riera, last October. Álvaro García

ELENA LÓPEZ RIERA

“

and

taught me that the fantastic coexists with our daily life and that ghosts are not the dead, but all those voices that coexist with us.

Thanks to these films I have learned to look beyond”.

The film director Pedro Aguilera, in Madrid.Samuel Sánchez

PEDRO AGUILERA

“For me it is

that is a key point.

Talking about the stigmas and conflicts in our country with such high-level cinematographic poetics was a milestone that is still valid today.

More than 50 years after its release, that film still represents us and that is an achievement only within the reach of a genius."

The director Neus Ballús.Renaud Montfourny

NEUS BALLÚS

“

is a brilliant and profoundly avant-garde film, which in many ways advances contemporary cinema, which influenced filmmakers from all corners of the world until reaching us now, half a century later”.