José Luis Garci

José Luis García Muñoz, known professionally as José Luis Garci, is a Spanish film director, producer, critic, TV presenter, screenwriter and author. One of the most influential film personalities in the history of film in Spain, he earned worldwide acclaim and his country's first Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for Begin the Beguine. Four of his films, including also Sesión continua, Asignatura aprobada and El abuelo, have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best [Foreign Language Film], more than any other Spanish director. His films are characterized for his classical style and the underlying sentimentality of their plots.

Early life and work

Born in 1944 in a humble family from Asturias. After completing a pre-university course, Garci began working as an administrative assistant in a bank. His love for cinema from an early age led him to pursue filmmaking as a career. At age twenty he began writing reviews for a number of film magazines such as Signos and Cinestudio, winning an award in 1968 from the Circulo de Escritores Cinematograficos for his work as film critic.
In 1969 he became involved in scriptwriting, receiving his first screen credits for Antonio Giménez Rico El Cronicón. Between 1972 and 1977 he scripted five more films: León Klimovsky's La casa de las chivas ; Pedro Olea's No es bueno que el hombre esté solo ; Eloy de la Iglesia's Una gota de sangre para morir amando, ; Antonio Drove's Mi mujer es muy decente dentro de lo que cabe or Roberto Bodegas' Vida conyugal sana and Los nuevos españoles. During this same period, Garci also wrote the made for T.V film La Cabina directed by Antonio Mercero. He then directed his first short films: !Al Futbol! ''Mi Marilyn, both in 1975, and Tiempo de gente acobardada.
At the same time, he wrote his first literary works, science fiction stories like: Bibidibabibidibú, Adam Blake, and La Gioconda está triste y otras extrañas historias. He also published the essay: Ray Bradbury humanista del futuro. In 1981 he obtained the Puerta de Oro Prize for his story Los mejores años de nuestra vida''.

Feature films

In 1977, José Luis Garci directed his first feature film Asignatura pendiente from a script by Gonzalez Sinde, a love story between an old pair of lovers which runs parallel to the social and political changes lived in Spain after the fall of Francisco Franco's regime. The film was well received by critics and audiences, becoming the most successful representative of the Spanish film of the generation of the Transition from dictatorship to democracy who saw themselves in a social and political limbo. A simple story of an amorous seduction by the film's hero is set around a series of topical references to a generation of Spaniards born in the immediate post-civil war period whose frustrations and nostalgia are embodied in the film's protagonist. Garci took his narrative cues from the visual patterns followed in the traditional Hollywood narrative.
Garci second film Solos en la madrugada became skilled tackling progressive social themes intended for an audience interested neither in elite art cinema nor in the popular style of most Spanish comedies. He used this same pattern in his third film, Las verdes praderas, in which heavy sentimentality, a constant in his films, became more apparent.
After founding the production company Nickel Odeon with José Esteban Alenda in 1980, the director changed gears with El Crack, in which he used the figure of the hard boiled detective in a story inspired by the novels of Dashiell Hammett, to whom the film is dedicated, and employing elements of the American film noirs of the 1930s and 40s giving it a Spanish flavor. For this film Garci won the CEC Award for Best Screenplay from the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos. The formula worked so well that two years later he made a sequel, '.
Between this two films, Garci made his most emblematic work Volver a empezar,, a sentimental story of an aging writer who returns to Spain after many years in exiled following the civil war. The film was the first Spanish motion picture to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
His films Sesión continua and Asignatura aprobada, which also received Academy Award nominations, gave emphasis to sentimentality. He won the Goya Award for Best Director for Asigantura aprobada in 1988. Canción de cuna, a film adaptation of Gregorio Martinez Sierra play, was awarded with the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 18th Montreal [World Film Festival]. Garci's subsequently films include La herida luminosa, and El abuelo, which was Spain's submission for the Best Foreign Film category of the Academy Awards in 1999, getting the final nomination.
Recently, Garci directed Una historia de entonces, which was entered into the 51st Berlin International Film Festival, Historia de un beso, Tiovivo c. 1950, Ninette, Luz de domingo, Sangre de mayo, Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days, and the prequel ', the third part of the crime film saga El crack. In addition to filmmaking, he is a popular television presenter in his homeland. His television program , which was broadcast on Televisión Española between 1995 and 2005 on the occasion of the first centenary of the history of cinema, presented a feature film weekly and was attended by three experts, who debated after the screening of the chosen film.

Style

Garci does not have a computer, but writes all his scripts by hand or on an Olympia brand typewriter. When writing a collaborative script, Garci can base it on his own idea or that of the other scriptwriter, providing mutual feedback with ideas, characters and scenes until reaching the final result. In his films his preference for the shot and sequence stands out and are usually divided into two stages, one that goes from Asignatura pendiente to Asignatura aprobada, another that begins with Canción de cuna and extends until El crack cero. In its first stage, Garci places the action in the present or in the immediate past, showing throughout the film the social and political changes that occur at that moment, while in the second stage it focuses on showing the past in an attempt to understand the present.

Personal life

Garci maintained a long-time relationship with Ana Rosa Quintana. In 1998 he began a relationship with Cayetana Guillén Cuervo, whom he met during the filming of El abuelo. Since June 10, 2004, he has been married to the Uruguayan actress Andrea Tenuta.
A fan of football, he is a follower of Atlético de Madrid and Real Sporting de Gijón, of which he was a director for more than three years.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Year	Category	Film	Result
1983	Best Foreign Language Film	Volver a empezar	Won
1985	Best Foreign Language Film	Sesión continua	Nomitated
1988	Best Foreign Language Film	Asignatura aprobada	Nomitated
1999	Best Foreign Language Film	El abuelo	Nomitated

Goya Awards

Year	Award	Film	Result
1988	Best Director	Asignatura aprobada	Won
1995	Best Adapted Screenplay	Canción de cuna	Nomitated
1995	Best Director	Canción de cuna	Nomitated
1999	Best Adapted Screenplay	El abuelo	Nomitated
2001	Best Director	You're the One	Nomitated
2001	Best Adapted Screenplay	You're the One	Nomitated
2006	Best Adapted Screenplay	Ninette	Nomitated

Berlin International Film Festival

Year	Category	Film	Result
2000	Golden Bear	You're the One	Nomitated

Montreal World Film Festival

Year	Category	Film	Result
1982	Prize of the Ecumenical Jury	Volver a empezar	Won
1994	Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention	Canción de cuna	Won
1994	Best Director	Canción de cuna	Won
1994	Special Grand Prize of the Jury	Canción de cuna	Won
1997	Grand prix des amériques	La herida luminosa	Nomitated

Chicago International Film Festival

Year	Category	Film	Result
1999	Gold Hugo	El abuelo	Nomitated

Cartagena Film Festival

Year	Category	Film	Result
2002	Golden India Catalina for Best Director	You're the One	Won
2002	Golden India Catalina for Best Film	You're the One	Nomitated

Toulouse Spanish Film Festival

Year	Category	Film	Result
2020	Audience Award	El crack cero	Won
2020	Golden Violet	El crack cero	Nomitated

Argentine Film Critics Association

Year	Category	Film	Result
2002	Silver Condor	You're the One	Nomitated

European Film Awards

Year	Category	Film	Result
2001	European Director	You're the One	Nomitated

New York Latin ACE Awards

Year	Award	Film	Result
1982	Cinema - Best Director	Volver a empezar	Won

Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos

Year	Award	Film	Result
1976	Best Short Film	Mi Marilyn	Won
1982	Best Screenplay	El Crack	Won
1995	Best Director	Canción de cuna	Won
1999	Best Adapted Screenplay	El abuelo	Won
2001	Best Original Screenplay	You're the One	Nomitated
2001	Best Director	You're the One	Won
2003	Best Original Screenplay	Historia de un beso	Nomitated
2003	Best Director	Historia de un beso	Nomitated
2005	Best Original Screenplay	Tiovivo c. 1950	Nomitated
2005	Best Director	Tiovivo c. 1950	Nomitated
2005	Best Editing	Tiovivo c. 1950	Nomitated
2006	Best Adapted Screenplay	Ninette	Nomitated
2008	Best Adapted Screenplay	Luz de Domingo	Won
2009	Best Adapted Screenplay	Sangre de mayo	Nomitated
2009	Best Director	Sangre de mayo	Nomitated
2020	Best Film	El crack cero	Nomitated
2020	Best Director	El crack cero	Nomitated

Sant Jordi Awards

Year	Award	Film	Result
1982	Best Short Film	Alfonso Sánchez	Won
1995	Best Spanish Film	Canción de cuna	Won
2023	Career Award		Won

Iris Awards

Year	Award	Film	Result
2001	Best Screenplay	EL abuelo	Won
2001	Best Direction	El abuelo	Nomitated

Antena de Oro

Year	Award	Film	Result
2004	Cinema		Won

Honours

Garci was honoured with the in 1992, the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts in 1996 and the in 2013, among many others. He is a member of the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In 2024 he received the EGEDA Gold Medal at the 30th edition of the Forqué Awards, recognizing his career as a director, producer and screenwriter in Spanish cinema and his role as a disseminator.