Agustí Villaronga
Villaronga in 2020
Born
Agustí Villaronga Riutort

(1953-03-04)4 March 1953
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Died22 January 2023(2023-01-22) (aged 69)
Barcelona, Spain
Occupation(s)Film director, screenwriter, actor
Years active1976–2023

Agustí Villaronga Riutort (Catalan pronunciation: [əɣusˈti βiʎəˈɾoŋɡə]; 4 March 1953 – 22 January 2023)[1][2] was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor.[3] 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.[4]

His auteur approach to filmmaking was described by ScreenDaily as demostrative of "a keen insight into human pain and cruelty".[5] 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,[6] but it did not make the final shortlist.[7]

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.[8] 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.[9] In 1992 he made a documentary, Al-Andalus, produced by Sogetel and the MoMa of New York city.[10][11] For some years Villaronga tried unsuccessfully to find financing to adapt a novel by Mercè Rodoreda, La mort i la primavera.[12] 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.[13][14]

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.[15] 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.[16][17]

In 2002, Villaronga co-directed with Lydia Zimmermann and Isaac Pierre Racine the film Aro Tolbukhin: In the Mind of a Killer. In 2005 he directed a music video for French superstar Mylène Farmer's song Fuck Them All.[18] 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 Bread's 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.[17] He died on 22 January 2023 in Barcelona, at the age of 69.[19] At the time of his death, he had one project, Stormy Lola, outstanding. It was shot in 2022, and was his first comedy film.[20][21][1]

Villaronga received the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts on 1 December 2022.[22]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Director Writer Notes Ref
1986 In a Glass Cage Yes Yes Manfred Salzberg Award at the Berlin film festival [23]
1989 Moon Child Yes Yes [23]
1992 Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain Yes Yes Documentary medium-length film [24]
1997 99.9 Yes Yes [23]
2000 The Sea Yes Yes Based on a novel by Blai Bonet. [23]
2002 Aro Tolbukhin: In the Mind of a Killer Yes Yes Co-directed with Isaac Pierre Racine and Lydia Zimmermann. [23]
2010 Black Bread Yes Yes Winner of nine Goya Awards, including best film, best director and best adapted screenplay. [23]
2015 The King of Havana Yes Yes [25]
2017 Uncertain Glory Yes Yes Based on the novel Uncertain Glory by Joan Sales. [26]
2019 Born a King Yes No United Kingdom and United Arab Emmirates production [27]
2021 The Belly of the Sea Yes Yes [28]
2023 Stormy Lola Yes Yes Posthumously released work [29]

Short film

Year Title Director Writer Notes
1976 Anta mujer Yes Yes
1980 Al Mayurka Yes Yes
Laberint Yes Yes
2000 Gracia Exquisita Yes No Short films anthology
2005 Fuck Them All Yes No Music video for Mylène Farmer
2015 El Testament de Rosa Yes Yes

Television

Year Title Director Writer Notes
1995 Cycle Simenon Yes Yes TV Anthology serie
Episode "Le passages clandestin"
1997 Croniques de la vertat oculta Yes Yes Episode "Pedagogia Aplicada"
2007 Miguel Bauça, Poeta Invisible Yes Yes TV Movie
Despues de La Lluvia Yes Yes
2009 50 años de.. Yes No Documentary TV Series
Episode "Fe"
2012 Carta a Eva Yes Yes TV Mini-series
2 episodes

Accolades

Year Award Category Work Result Ref
1990 4th Goya Awards Best Director Moon Child Nominated [30]
Best Original Screenplay Won
2011 3rd Gaudí Awards Best Director Black Bread Won [31]
Best Screenplay Won
25th Goya Awards Best DirectorWon [32]
Best Adapted ScreenplayWon
2016 8th Gaudí Awards Best Director The King of Havana Nominated [33][34]
Best Screenplay Nominated
30th Goya Awards Best Adapted Screenplay Nominated [35]
2018 10th Gaudí Awards Best Director Uncertain GloryNominated [36][37]
Best Screenplay Nominated
2022 36th Goya Awards Best Adapted Screenplay The Belly of the Sea Nominated [38]
14th Gaudí Awards Best Director Nominated [39]
Best Screenplay Nominated

References

  1. 1 2 "Muere el director Agustí Villaronga ('Pa Negre') a los 69 años". Cinemanía. 22 January 2023 – via 20minutos.es.
  2. ↑ "Agustí Villaronga". AlloCiné (in French). Retrieved 2 March 2016.
  3. ↑ "Agustí Villaronga". spainisculture. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
  4. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Moon Child". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 1 August 2009.
  5. ↑ Mayorga, Emilio (22 January 2023). "Agustí Villaronga, 'Black Bread', 'The Sea' director, dies aged 69". ScreenDaily.
  6. ↑ ""PA NEGRE" REPRESENTARÁ A ESPAÑA EN LOS OSCAR". CBC. 28 September 2011. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  7. ↑ "9 Foreign Language Films Vie for Oscar". Archived from the original on 18 May 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  8. ↑ Levine, Sydney (11 January 2012). "The Secret of Black Bread". IndieWire. Retrieved 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.
  9. ↑ "EL NINO DE LA LUNA". Cannes Festival. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  10. ↑ "Agustí Villaronga, el director de la mirada poética". RTVE (in Spanish). 22 July 2011. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  11. ↑ "El 'GOYA 2011 Mejor Dirección' ha sido para Agustí Villaronga « Blog del Instituto Cervantes Nueva York" (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  12. ↑ Lardín, Rubén. "Agustí Villaronga". Vice (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  13. ↑ Colmena, Enrique. "El pasajero clandestino - Criticalia.com". Criticalia (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  14. ↑ "El Pasajero Clandestino". Catálogo de Cine Español - I.C.A.A.
  15. ↑ Torreiro, Casimiro (19 October 1997). "El festival de cine de Sitges se clausura con unos premios polémicos". El Pais (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 November 2022.
  16. ↑ The Sea, Rotten Tomatoes, retrieved 23 January 2023
  17. 1 2 "Darkness in Berlin". The Advocate. 11 April 2000. p. 46. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  18. ↑ Julien AUTIER; Philippe LEZE; Guillaume DATEZ & Sarah HOFER. "Mylene.Net - Le site référence sur Mylène Farmer". mylene.net. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  19. ↑ Mayorga, Emilio (22 January 2023). "Agustí Villaronga, 'Black Bread', 'The Sea' director, dies aged 69". ScreenDaily.
  20. ↑ "Muere a los 69 años el cineasta Agustí Villaronga, director de 'Pa negre'". Onda Cero. 22 January 2023.
  21. ↑ "Agustí Villaronga rueda su primera comedia con Susi Sánchez, "Loli Tormenta"". Cadena COPE. 13 July 2022.
  22. ↑ "El director de cine Agustí Villaronga recoge la Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes". Europa Press. 1 December 2022.
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Agustí Villaronga - Filmography". BFI. Archived from the original on 19 April 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  24. ↑ "AL-ANDALUS. LAS ARTES ISLAMICAS EN ESPAÑA". Catálogo de Cinespañol I.C.A.A. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  25. ↑ Lodge, Guy (1 October 2015). "Film Review: 'The King of Havana'". Variety.
  26. ↑ "INCIERTA GLORIA". Catálogo de Cinespañol I.C.A.A. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  27. ↑ Hopewell, John (4 October 2019). "Agusti Villaronga's 'Born a King' Catches Box Office Fire in UAE, Saudi Arabia". Variety.
  28. ↑ Young, Neil (25 April 2021). "'The Belly Of The Sea': Moscow Review". ScreenDaily.
  29. ↑ "Muere el cineasta Agustí Villaronga, director de 'Pa Negre', a los 69 años en Barcelona". El Confidencial. 22 January 2023.
  30. ↑ "El niño de la luna". premiosgoya.com. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  31. ↑ "III Gaudí Awards". www.academiadelcinema.cat. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
  32. ↑ "Pa negre". premiosgoya.com. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  33. ↑ "Nominaciones a los Premios Gaudí 2016". Fotogramas. 30 December 2015.
  34. ↑ "Todos los ganadores de los Gaudí 2016". El Periódico de Catalunya. 1 February 2016.
  35. ↑ "El Rey de La Habana". premiosgoya.com. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  36. ↑ "Totes les nominacions als Gaudí 2018". 3/24. 28 December 2017 – via Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals.
  37. ↑ "'Estiu 1993' triomfa en uns premis Gaudí marcats per l'excepcionalitat política". VilaWeb (in Catalan). 28 January 2020. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  38. ↑ "El vientre del mar". premiosgoya.com. Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España. Retrieved 23 January 2023.
  39. ↑ "Los Gaudí encumbran a Neus Ballús y Clara Roquet por 'Sis dies corrents' y 'Libertad'". Cine con Ñ. 7 March 2022.
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